BLURB AND REVIEWS
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‘THE ORIGINAL CROSSROADS used to run by here,’ Sam told Rafferty. ‘Legend has it that this was the old Hanging Tree.’
*
WHEN INSPECTOR RAFFERTY first hears the report that a bound and hooded body has been seen hanging from a tree in Dedman Wood, he dismisses it as a schoolboy hoax, especially when police at the scene find nothing out of the ordinary.
*
BUT HIS ANXIETY RISES sharply when the witness turns out to be a respectable local magistrate, who identifies the corpse as Maurice Smith, a man once accused of four child rapes. Thrown out on a legal technicality, Smith’s case had become a cause-celebre which had generated much ill-feeling within the community.
*
RAFFERTY AND SERGEANT Llewellyn visit Smith’s home – to discover he has mysteriously disappeared. And
