[Ashes to Ashes 03] • Garden of Thorns

Mark is working at an archaeological excavation and Hilary at an art museum in Fort Worth, Texas. Their relationship is rocky enough without someone resorting to murder to keep his skeletons in the closet.

"…an onionskin plot, a fine set of characters, a dash of humor and interesting reThe house in the photo on the print cover of Garden of Thorns (top) is closer to the description of the house in the story, although the house on the cover of the e-version is actually in Fort Worth. Maybe we can split the difference....

Mark Owen and Hilary Chase, who met at the excavation of a medieval Scottish priory in Dust to Dust, get back together in Fort Worth, Texas, his home town. Hilary is working at a museum, curating a set of medieval artifacts recovered from the Nazis by famous explorer and writer Arthur Coburg. Only when he recently died did the existence of the artifacts come to light. Now his much younger wife, Dolores, wants to sell them to the museum.

Mark is helping British archaeologist Jenny Galliard excavate the Coburgs' eerie Victorian house, Osborne, a place scarred by two unsolved Jack-the-Ripper style murders. The emotional scars of Hilary's past are still healing, much to Mark's sympathy and frustration combined. Putting together a relationship is hard enough without being drawn unwillingly into the dark secrets of the Coburg family. No surprise Osborne is haunted.

But Mark and Hilary are dismayed to find that Jenny Galliard is also haunted, by a mystery that dates not only back to World War II, but into medieval times. A killer is still walking the shadows of Osborne House. Will Mark and Hilary survive long enough to find the solution to crimes both recent and distant, let alone long enough to find each other? alism. Each revelation sends the story in a new direction." —Timothy Lane