Murder in an Abandoned Manor

Having endured the death of her mother, a divorce, and the loss of her job at a publishing house in the past year, American Joe Jones suddenly inherits a family estate in North Yorkshire. However, she is not greeted by a luxurious palace, but by a gloomy mansion that has been uninhabited for more than a hundred years. With a hole in the roof, mold in the corners, an overgrown garden, and a library that is almost rotting. Nevertheless, Joe, who possesses truly encyclopedic knowledge but struggles with shyness in dealing with people, is not frightened by this. She enthusiastically takes on the restoration of the estate and the study of her family's history, of which she knows almost nothing. Then Joe finds the lifeless body of the caretaker of her new home with three gunshot wounds to the back. And she realizes that she may become the prime suspect in the murder. At the same time, a special portrait mysteriously linked to the discovered corpse and to the enigmatic history of her family disappears from a secret room in the mansion. With the help of an antique dealer from Wales, a gruff local detective, and the pub owner's wife, Joe must find the missing painting. And along the way, uncover extremely unpleasant secrets of a small town and her own family. And she must do all this before the killer strikes again...