Before the Poison by Peter Robinson

Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of the Inspector Banks series comes a superb stand-alone novel in which a man's obsession with a decades-old crime leads him down a dark and winding path

Chris Lowndes built a comfortable career composing scores for films in Hollywood. But after twenty-five years abroad, and still quietly reeling from the death of his beloved wife, he decides to return to the Yorkshire dales of his youth. To ease the move, he buys Kilnsgate House, a rambling old mansion deep in the country.

Although Chris finds Kilnsgate charming, something about the house disturbs him, a vague sensation that the long empty rooms have been waiting for him--feelings made ever stronger when he learns that the house was the scene of a murder more than fifty years before. The former owner, a prominent doctor named Ernest Arthur Fox, was supposedly poisoned by his beautiful and much younger wife, Grace. Arrested and brought to trial, Grace was found guilty and hanged for the crime.

His curiosity piqued, Chris talks to the locals and searches through archives for information about the case. But the more he discovers, the more convinced he becomes that Grace may have been innocent. Ignoring warnings to leave it alone, he sets out to discover what really happened over half a century ago--a quest that takes him deep into the past and into a web of secrets that lie all too close to the present.

My thoughts
Chris Lowndes leaves Hollywood to go back to Yorkshire after his wife dies from cancer. I purchases a house sight unseen, but soon learns of its history and becomes obsessed with learning more about the previous owners Ernest and Grace Fox. Grace was convicted and hanged for poisoning her husband some fifty odd years earlier.

Although, I found it a little slow, I also found the diary of Grace interesting enough to continuing reading. I enjoyed the Chris’s search to find out if Grace was innocent or not and his travels across the globe to find the answers he seeks, but the climax was some of a letdown for me.

Disclosure: I received this book for review through the amazon.com vine program. I received no compensation for my thoughts.