The year is 1879. The prestigious post of Organist and Master of the Choristers at Hartley Parish Church, West Yorkshire, has become vacant because of the sudden death in suspicious circumstances of Dr Thomas Burchill. Burchill was renowned the length and breadth of Britain and the Empire for the choir; so much so that Queen Victoria summoned the singers to Windsor Castle on more than one occasion. Burchill’s position is now up for grabs, and there is a long list of contenders for the role: this will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for the successful applicant, for they will dominate music-making of every kind throughout Hartleydale. More to the point, Hartley Parish Church is on the verge of becoming a Cathedral, subject to passing stringent tests, including the standard of the music-making. Seven applicants are shortlisted by the ambitious Vicar, Dr Percy G. Banks, assisted by his long-time friend and mentor, Charleton Mann, of Yorbridge Cathedral. The day of the auditions arrives. Candidates fail to appear or deliberately play badly apart from Dr Algernon Burford, who is about to steal the show when he is brutally killed at the organ console. Thus begins a story of murder, betrayal, passion, poisoned relationships and much more. Victorian Hartleydale is rocked to its foundations as the truth behind its prim and proper establishment emerges. Detective Chief Inspector Wright Watson, Head of the newly formed Hartley CID, together with Detective Sergeant Harry Makepeace, will have to disentangle a complex web of lies, deceit, double-dealing, and downright hypocrisy in order to cleanse the town, its parish church, its political class and its governing society once and for all. He will nearly die himself in the process; all because of one person’s ruthless and murderous ambition to wreak revenge on the world of the church organ loft.
