A Darker Music

When Mary Lanyon takes the job of temporary housekeeper to the wealthy Hazlitt family at Downe—a famous Merino sheep stud—she realizes something is amiss: Mrs. Clio Hazlitt is ill and rarely ventures from her room, and the house itself is shabby and redolent of dust and secrets. As the housekeeper prepares the house for the wedding of the Hazlitt’s only son and heir, Martin, a friendship develops between Mary and Clio and the family’s troubled past is revealed. What is the nature of Clio’s illness? What has caused the grim estrangement between Clio and her husband? And why did Clio give up playing music when it meant so much to her? Vivid and captivating, this gripping mystery exposes the heart of rural Western Australia.