I have to confess that I didn't make the connection between the author of this novel and the eponymous setting until part way through, when I looked up the Lords Leicester and the Coke (pronounced 'Cook') family and realised that Anne Glenconner has actually created a wonderful fictionalised version of her own biography (which I want to read next!) And I had even watched a documentary about Holkham Hall - part of a series with a certain famous television estate agent turned presenter - and the Coke family a few months earlier, yet still failed to link the first Earl of Leicester, Thomas Coke, with his great x 5 (I think) grand niece! Duh.

When I finally figured out that Baroness Glenconner is writing about her own childhood and coming of age at Holkham Hall during the 1940s, with a gothic murder mystery about missing family jewels and sadistic governesses thrown in for good measure, I really enjoyed this novel approach - pardon the pun - to family history. Young Anne is a plucky heroine, tackling ghosts of the spectral and emotional kind while also hunting her grandfather's killer, and the author's personal knowledge of Holkham shows in every loving and vivid description. The plot seemed obvious at first but I will admit to missing a link in solving the mystery thanks to great use of a red herring subplot!

Not sure I will continue with the author's next novel, set on Mustique, but I will definitely be reading her autobiography soon! ( )

Amazing book! The story held me in it's grip until the end. It was also fascinating to get an inside look at the postwar home life of an aristocratic family. ( )