In the village of Mardle, the dead are still announced by hand - one stroke of the church bell, and then the long listening that comes after.
Connie Frayne came to Mardle to be quietly, ordinarily sad. A retired forensic accountant, recently widowed, she wanted a small grey village where nothing added up to much and no one asked anything of her.
Then the Heritage & Amenities Committee invited her to join.
They meet on Thursdays, in the vestry, over terrible tea: four elderly villagers and one empty sixth chair. They tend the church flowers and the parish records - and, Connie slowly realises, a far older book. A book that quietly decides which of Mardle's deaths were natural, which were merciful, and which are never to be spoken of again.
Connie has spent forty years reading the lies hidden inside honest-looking numbers. She knows a balanced account when she sees one. And the committee's accounts balance far too neatly.
But the closer she looks, the more she understands that Mardle did not invite her by accident - and that the empty sixth chair has been waiting, all this time, for exactly the right person to fill it.
People lie. Numbers don't.
A darkly gripping village mystery about grief, mercy, and the terrible arithmetic of a community that decides who deserved to die - for readers of Richard Osman, Janice Hallett, and Freida McFadden.
