Death in Disguise is a crime novel by Caroline Graham

Caroline Graham

Caroline Graham is an English playwright, screenwriter and novelist.Graham was born in Nuneaton, studied with the Open University, and received a degree in writing for the theatre from the University of Birmingham. Her first published book was Fire Dance, a romance novel...

, the third in her popular Chief Inspector

Chief inspector

Chief inspector is a rank used in police forces which follow the British model. In countries outside Britain, it is sometimes referred to as chief inspector of police .-Australia:...

 Barnaby

Tom Barnaby

Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Geoffrey "Tom" Barnaby is a fictional detective created by Caroline Graham. DCI Barnaby is featured in the Chief Inspector Barnaby book series which began with The Killing at Badger's Drift in 1987. Barnaby is also the main detective in Midsomer Murders, a popular...

 series, which has been adapted into the successful ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 drama

Drama

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...

 Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders

Midsomer Murders is a British television detective drama that has aired on ITV since 1997. The show is based on the books by Caroline Graham, as originally adapted by Anthony Horowitz. The lead character is DCI Tom Barnaby who works for Causton CID. When Nettles left the show in 2011 he was...

.

Plot summary

In a country manor house currently owned by a New Age

New Age

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...

 cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

 of mystics

Mysticism

Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...

, the mysterious death of member William Carter stirs all the local gossips into a frenzy of speculation. However, the rumours of sinister goings on are confirmed when the so-called Master of the Lodge also dies, after somebody throws a knife his way during a psychic

Psychic

A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...

 regression

Past life regression

Past life regression is a technique that uses hypnosis to recover what practitioners believe are memories of past lives or incarnations, though others regard them as fantasies or delusions. Past life regression is typically undertaken either in pursuit of a spiritual experience, or in a...

.

Meanwhile, untrustworthy financier Guy Gamelin tries reconciling with his estranged, cultist daughter Sylvia, now called Suhami, and Chief Inspector Barnaby finds himself lost amidst a labyrinthine puzzle of deception, evil and pseudo-supernatural forces...

Publication history

• United Kingdom
  United Kingdom
  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
  
  : 1992, Headline, London, 1992, Hardback, 374 p., ISBN 0747206082.
• United States
  United States
  The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
  
  : 1993, Morrow, New York City, 1993, Hardback, 333 p., ISBN 0688099858.

Television adaptation

The novel was adapted into the fifth episode of Midsomer Murders starring (alongside regulars John Nettles

John Nettles

John Vivian Drummond Nettles, OBE is an English actor, historian and writer who is best known for playing the lead roles in Bergerac and Midsomer Murders.-Early life:...

 and Daniel Casey

Daniel Casey

-Early life:The son of journalist and television presenter Luke Casey, he grew up in Stockton-on-Tees and attended Grey College, Durham, graduating with a BA in English Literature before pursuing a career in acting.-Career:...

) Judy Cornwell

Judy Cornwell

Judy Valerie Cornwell is an English actress best known for her role as Daisy in the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.-Biography:...

, Miles Anderson

Miles Anderson

Miles Anderson is a Zimbabwean actor. He has lived in England and America for the last 40 years.He was born in 1947 in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Educated at Prince Edward school, his father commanded the Rhodesian Army until dismissed by Premier Ian Smith for his stance against racism and a...

, Charles Kay

Charles Kay

Charles Kay is an English actor.Kay was born in Coventry, West Midlands, the son of Frances and Charles Beckingham Piff....

 and Geoffrey Beevers

Geoffrey Beevers

Geoffrey Beevers is a British actor who has appeared in many different television roles.Beevers has worked extensively at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames, both as an actor ; and as an adaptor/director of George Eliot's novel Adam Bede , for which he won a Time Out Award, and Balzac's...

.