"Penhallow" is not your standard Heyer mystery with a light romance, though written in 1943, it reads as if it was published today with all the stark emphasis on the macabre of human behavior. Adam Penhallow exercises all his power to draw his sons & their wives, his sister and his wife into his malevolent realm of hatred and malice. It isn't a question of when he will be murdered, but by whom. There is little doubt as to the identity of the killer, but there is no evidence.