Downloading Dollhouse (The Blake Harte Mystery 11)

It’s been over a year since the events in Manchester that resulted in Blake Harte and Harrison Baxter becoming engaged. Harmschapel is still the village with the best sunset in the world, Betty the goat still hates Blake and Michael Gardiner is still as grumpy as ever, but the world around them is a very different place.

With the residents of Harmschapel all doing their best to obey the rules of lockdown, Blake feels that, for the moment, his days of solving bizarre murders and impossible happenings must be behind him. Then comes the death of Mavis McBride.

Mavis lives alone, on the outskirts of Harmschapel. She tries to seclude herself as much as possible, with only a porcelain doll, Alice, from her childhood for company. Her house is surrounded by high tech surveillance and security equipment – and yet, one night, her body is discovered. Mavis has been murdered and the only suspect is Alice. As stories of the house being haunted by a doll that can apparently walk and talk unaided begin to circulate, Blake finds himself facing the impossible once again in the form of what appears to be something straight out of a child’s nightmare…