The Sleep of Reason

Sir Lewis Eliot returns to his hometown in the tenth, and penultimate, novel in the Strangers and Brothers sequence. Although now mature in the world of affairs and in possession of a knighthood, the older Lewis has much to contend with - his eyesight is failing and a risky operation is on the horizon, his father is dying, and his old mentor, George Passant, has asked him to observe the trial of his niece - a young woman accused of the torture and murder of a child .