The Hourglass

Beyond high iron gates fastened shut with a length of chain lies the stark beautiful Trawbawn. Here haunted by a dark mysterious past and largely ignored by the people of nearby Skibbereen lives the frail Lydia Beauchamp. But old Ma Beauchamp''s private existence is interrupted when a stranger arrives - a young man called Adam who wanders into the vast grounds of Trawbawn and becomes one of Lydia''s most welcome contacts with the outside world. When Lydia sets her new confidante a challenge he eagerly accepts - Adam must travel to Dublin to find her estranged daughter. But it is a task tainted by an air of menace. For what terrible past has driven a daughter from her mother? And what true motive lies behind Adam''s generous act? Soon the unlikely friends are entwined in a deadly game and a pursuit born of an old lady''s desire for peace mutates into a terrible relentless need for revenge . . .