Half Light

The finest medical gauze, sharp instruments for delicate probing, linseed oil...these were a few of the tools of Elisabeth Young's trade. A restorer of paintings, she delighted in her tasks: to clean, patch, fill in, and revarnish until the work gave up its secrets and glowed in its original glory. Alone in her London flat, Elisabeth savored the tranquility demanded by both her craft and her soul...a gently guarded peace shared solely with her latest lover, Francis Thurloe. Amiable, patrician, unconscious of his assumption that adoration was his birthright, the handsome barrister felt thwarted by Elisabeth's baffling mix of sensual generosity and emotional reserve. She did not confront, demand, or whine...nor did she confide her mounting anxiety over the suspicion that she was being followed wherever she went. And when she accepted an offer to restore a wealthy collector's paintings, stored in his cavernous mansion flat, no one knew that Elisabeth Young was about to disappear...When the police find her car abandoned, and her flat tidy, with trash put out, their interest lapses: woman picked up and left, as single women do....no family, no close friends, not to worry, she'll turn up. But Francis, worried, begins a search that leads him to Annie Macalpine, an antiques dealer whose spiked-hair, lowbrow stance hides the bravest and hungriest of hearts...Enid Daley, Elisabeth's self-appointed concierge, whose jealousy of her winsome, serene neighbor curdles with venom...Thomas Milton, a patron of the arts whose private demons have forged a brutal sense of entitlement...Maria Milton, his sister, grotesque in form and speech, but solaced by severe religious rituals...Butler, Thomas's companion, ferociously loyal and trained to attack without mercy.As a madman's vise tightens around the trapped Elisabeth, Francis and Annie hunt frantically for his elegant prison, where beautiful works of art are coaxed to life...only to be savagely destroyed....