Surface tension - Joanna Hines

It is the long, hot summer of 1976. Six friends share an idyllic few months at Grays Orchard. But the endless days of art, love and abandonment - immortalised in the celebrated paintings of resident artist, Gus Ridley - come to a brutal end when one of the friends is murdered. The murder becomes local legend, but is never quite resolved. Twenty years later, Gus's wife Carol knows little about her husband's past; he never speaks of that summer years ago, he never sees his former friends and he no longer paints in the way that made him so famous... until the arrival of Gus's niece, conceived at Grays Orchard during that summer of drought, causes the mystery surrounding the murder to resurface. Carol's determination to unlock the secrets of the past leads her to the one man she believes holds the key. The main suspect of the murder, now the head of a sinister cult, who resides under a vow of silence...