‘The Body in the Attic’ by Katherine Hall Page

Published by Robert Hale Ltd.
1^st May 2004.
ISBN: 978-0-7090-8052-7 (HB)

When Minister Tom Fairchild has the opportunity to teach for a semester at Harvard’s Divinity School he jumps at the chance. As he explains to his wife Faith, he has for some time felt stale in his current job and this is just the break he needs to refresh him. Faith is not totally convinced, but Tom easily overcomes her objections, and within a short time they are settled into a large house in  Cambridge across the river from Boston. Although the house is large and adequate for their needs, Faith finds it dark, and exploring the attic one day is struck by an unpleasant feeling that something horrible had happened here.

Helping out serving food to the homeless one day Faith is amazed to see an old boyfriend in the queue. The last time she had seen Richard Morgan was thirteen years previously when he went off to do research for a book. She is concerned to see him in these reduced circumstances and agrees to meet him.

Despite having declared the attics off limits to her children she finds her son Ben attempting to reach Narnia in an old wardrobe in the attic. In extracting him she dislodges what turns out to be an old diary. The diary is written by a woman who lived in the house in 1946, and reveals to a horrified Faith, the horror of her life. 

Morbidly fascinated by the life of the woman in the diary, who she is now determined to trace, running her catering firm, and intrigued by the re-appearance of her former boyfriend, not to mention fending off a female student who has the hots for her husband, keeps Faith somewhat busy. But soon Faith is caught up in a murder.

This is the first book by Katherine Hall Page that I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am thrilled to see that there are a further thirteen books in the series. Recommended.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Katherine Hall Page is the author of Twenty five Faith Fairchild mysteries, the first of which received the Agatha Award for best first mystery, and recently The Body in the Snowdrift was honored with the Agatha Award for best novel of 2006. Page also won an Agatha for her short story "The Would-Be Widower." She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and son.