Deceased Estate by Geoff Shearer

ANTIQUE dealer Joshua McAdams at first believes he has purchased the most important deceased estate so far in his young career. The estate of Elizabeth Crowe, the former headmistress of the local girls college who shot herself dead after attending her companion's funeral, is rich with treasures, but even richer in sinister, and what will prove deadly, secrets.

When the Crowe mansion is being prepared for removal to make way for a housing estate, a hidden pit is found near the rear of the historic building. Inside are the skeletal remains of an infant and two girls who went missing two decades earlier - one of them, Josh's beloved little sister Sophie.

As Elizabeth Crowe's possessions are scattered wide and far through Josh's shopfront and online auctions, via charity shops and secondhand stores, a coronial inquiry finds Crowe guilty of the three deaths. But the findings are flawed and from beyond her grave, a furious, murderous Crowe becomes intent on avenging the false accusations.

Via her possessions, her now repositioned house, even through the very soil where the mansion once stood, Crowe's horrific haunting will see her once beloved coastal town become shrouded in terror, insanity and bloods, lots of blood.

It is up to Joshua to not only find some way of appeasing Crowe but to uncover the mystery of the burial pit and the real person responsible for the killings. It will test his stamina, his mental strength and what he thought were the principles behind guilt and innocence.