‘Uncle!’ The man lay with his head propped against the standing stone - what was left of his head. Hippolyta swallowed hard. ‘I’m a doctor’s wife,’ she told herself. ‘I can manage.’ No one can think why this man has been murdered, nor why passing farmer has also been attacked. But as Hippolyta Napier does her best to assist the sheriff’s man in damp, autumnal Ballater, they gradually unfold a web of violence, past tragedy and present crisis, threatening anyone who comes near it. A Lochgorm Lament is the fifth in the Ballater Murder series, set in 1830s Scotland.