The Truth About Constance Weaver

by Richard Farr

It may begin with a bloodied corpse in the library of an old country house, and end with a twist you'll never forget, but this is not a genre mystery novel.

Love letters dated 1732. A mysterious double portrait. A dying woman who loathes her oldest "friend." Who did what to whom, and why, is just the first layer of the onion in this gripping story about obsession, forgery, murder, and madness.

From one of the letters:
"The gentleman portraied on that canvass is my husband, Sir Jacob Hart. Tho' he was a man without parallel among his sex in character, wits and vertue; tho' he made a rare husband and a loving father; tho' I have known no person who was his equal, and tho' in truth he was the very ideal of a man, yet to say all this is to omit from the account one grave irregularity …"

And from the final document, a Will:
​"Sometimes in this life do we ope a box, to find but another box within."

Who are these people, really? Who painted the portrait? And when you do discover the truth, on the very last page - have you discovered it?

Or has art outpaced life one more time?

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 2014

About the author

I grew up in England's West Country - one of the world's leading producers of strange names for small villages. I now live in Seattle - the only American city with exactly the same climate.

When I'm not reading, writing, mentoring students and adults (richardfarr.net), or staring out of the window, I enjoy running, hiking and sea kayaking.