Flight of a Witch: A gripping, cosy, classic crime whodunnit from a Diamond Dagger winner

By Ellis Peters

No case is too strange or too baffling for the policeman George Felse and his son, Dominic. Over 13 instalments and two decades, the Felse Investigations will take them from their home on the Welsh Borders to the southernmost tip of India.

Annet Beck is hauntingly beautiful, which worries her parents so much that they guard her as closely as a prisoner... until the rainy Thursday in October when she disappears. Annet is last seen vanishing over the crest of the eerie Hallowmount, a hill said to be the abode of witches. Five days later she mysteriously reappears, claiming that she was gone for only two hours.

Enchanted by her beauty, Annet's parents' lodger Tom Kenyon is determined to find the explanation for her disappearance: could it be deceit, amnesia or witchcraft? Tom's amateur investigations lead to nowhere until Detective Inspector George Felse finds cause to connect those missing five days with his enquiry into a death.

The subsequent search takes the two men along a trail of betrayal, robbery and murder to a deadly confrontation among the ancient stones of Hallowmount...

'Highly recommended to those who still like a proper five-course whodunnit with all the trimmings' Sunday Times
'A cult figure of crime fiction' Financial Times
'Charm is not usual in murder mysteries, but Ellis Peters' stories are full of it' Mail on Sunday

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Aug 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781784972813

Ellis Peters

Ellis Peters (the pen name of Edith Pargeter, 1913–1995) is a writer beloved of millions of readers worldwide and has been widely adapted for radio and television, including her Brother Cadfael crime novels, which were made into a series starring Derek Jacobi. She has been the recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger, Edgar Award for Best Novel, Agatha Award for Best Novel, and was awarded an OBE for her services to literature in 1994.

Reviews for Flight of a Witch

[bonniejune54 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I liked it. Ellis Peters seemed to be fantasizing a bit about what it's like to have looks that have all the men falling in love with you. Annet doesn't fit any pretty girl stereotype.

[jonrob_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is one of Ms. Peters' modern-day mysteries, involving the disappearance of the beautiful young Annet Beck on the mysterious Hallowmount (based, I suspect, on the Stiperstones). When she reappears after five days, she insists that she's only been gone for a couple of hours. Both George and Dominic Felse (at this stage still in the sixth form) feature, together with the impressionable young teacher Tom Kenyon. It transpires that Annet has accidentally become involved with a rather sordid murder, but she continues to refuse to speak. There's a rather implausibly melodramatic conclusion (back on the Hallowmount). Not one of her best, in my view, but still worth reading once.