Marjorie Eccles hat zahlreiche romantische und Kriminalromane verfasst, die sowohl in Großbritannien als auch in den USA veröffentlicht wurden. Ihre Werke haben eine breite internationale Resonanz erfahren, da sie weltweit übersetzt und als Fortsetzungsgeschichten veröffentlicht wurden. Eccles verwebt komplizierte Handlungsstränge mit emotionaler Tiefe und spricht damit ein breites Lesepublikum an.
England 1905. Auf Charnley feiert man den Geburtstag von Lady Beatrice. Viele Gäste sind gekommen. Am nächsten Morgen ist Beatrice verschwunden. §40 Jahre später entdeckt man bei Renovierungsarbeiten ihr Tagebuch. Harriet, die älteste Tochter der Familie, beginnt noch einmal intensiv nach ihrer Mutter zu forschen ...
February, 1933. When Paul Millar returns home, fourteen years after he was presumed killed at the end of the Great War, his shocked family have many questions, which Paul refuses to answer. DI Herbert Reardon has questions too, when Paul's body is found in the canal just two weeks later and it becomes his duty to solve this most puzzling of cases.
Two men appear to commit suicide, but the post-mortem reveals surprising results. As Chief Inspector Lamb looks for links between the two men, all paths lead to the enigmatic figure of Mrs. Isobel Amberley and a mysterious event that took place one winter's night in Vienna.
<div>Life at Charnley was blessed, or at least so it seemed to the Jardine children. But one night their dreams of a propitious future suddenly come crashing down when a family scandal catapults them into the headlines. Nearly four decades pass and the Second World War is won, but still the exact events of that fateful night remain unknown. However, when builders working on Charnley uncover a shoebox stuffed full of old letters, photographs, and a diary, it finally seems as though some of the answers are within reach. The clue to unraveling the affair lies in a voyage to Egypt undertaken by Beatrice eleven years before her disappearance. With the help of her old diary, Beatrice's three daughters set about uncovering the truth. But when the mummified body of a brutally murdered woman is discovered in the ruins of their old home, they have a whole new set of questions. Beautifully written, evoking the life of the Edwardian upper classes, bomb-scarred, post war England, and the sultry Egyptian landscape, <i>The Shape of Sand</i> proclaims the incomparable talent of this great author. </div>