House of Lies

House of Lies

A dark secret. A haunted past. And a house full of lies. When two teenage girls vanish without a trace from an educational retreat at Chidlow House in Lincolnshire, the students and teachers are put on high alert. Called in to investigate, Detective Karen Hart questions everyone who came into contact with the two girls, Cressida and Natasha, in the days leading up to their disappearance. Stories of Chidlow House being haunted abound, but Hart―still coming to terms with the suspicious circumstances surrounding the tragic loss of her own family―knows that while the house might be otherworldly, the crime is grimly real. But nothing is quite as it seems at Chidlow House. When it becomes clear that someone at the estate must know more than they’re letting on, Hart faces a race against time to find the culprit and save the girls. While there is no shortage of suspects, Hart comes up against one dead end after another. And when she too begins hearing eerie whispers in the walls, she is forced to wonder: was she too quick to dismiss Chidlow’s supernatural reputation? Born in Kent, D. S. Butler grew up as an avid reader with a love for crime fiction and mysteries. She has worked as a scientific officer in a hospital pathology laboratory and as a research scientist. After obtaining a PhD in biochemistry, she worked at the University of Oxford for four years before moving to the Middle East. While living in Bahrain, she wrote her first novel and hasn’t stopped writing since. She now lives in Lincolnshire with her husband.