The three venerable senior residents of the most prestigious dwelling in the village of Sunken Madley, home in the present day to covert witch Amanda Cadabra and her feline familiar, are old hands at dealing with the unusual. But what were they like in their youth, and how did they first encounter the world of magic? Scroll back to post-war London of the 1950s …

Gwendolen

Philip Rayke, an MI6 employee in an obscure department no one is eager to acknowledge, is seconded to unravel a strange case. A young man has mysteriously died in an apparently empty house. What is the Russian connection? Something doesn’t … feel right.

Moffat

The Grange estate’s charming assistant estate manager finds himself in trouble after a night of passion places him at the scene of an unexplained death. Are these haunted grounds? Are aristocratic family members less ‘than they appear? Philip Rayke is called to consult – but even he may be out of his depth.

Cynthia

Pressganged by her mother into a fashionable costume party at Nordbury Manor, a bored Cynthia, resorts to too much champagne and finds herself immersed in far too much history. A bullet and a body later, and Cynthia is about to face a murder charge. With Rayke tied up elsewhere, it’s up to his resourceful wife, Marion, to uncover the truth.

A prequel to the Amanda Cadabra Urban Fantasy Mystery Series