In the summer of 1944, Leslie Atwater -- feeling abandoned by his lover Edward -- rushes to London to enlist in the armed services. After failing the physical, he retreats to the sanctuary of St. Michael’s rectory and to the love and support of his brother Robert.<br><br>When a bomb explodes near St. Andrew’s Home for Boys, it unearths a skeleton of an adolescent. As Leslie, Edward, and Robert set about identifying the remains, the shocking discovery stirs up an old antagonism between the two brothers and brings to light a string of repressed memories for Leslie.<br><br>With the truth obscured by the passage of years, can Leslie and Edward sift through the lies and subterfuge to track down the coldhearted killer of a kindred spirit?

Kindred Spirit

Though it was warm outside and the tail end of July, Leslie felt a coldness that seemed to permeate the skin and take up residence in his bones. A chill he identified as part of the grieving process over their loss; it was a familiar sensation, bringing memories of an early fall at the beginning of the Blitz when he had thought Edward was lost to him forever.


Robert rose early the morning after Mrs. Crowe’s funeral to pay a home visit to an elderly parishioner. Left to his own devices, Leslie found himself on the couch and deep into reading Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen. He couldn’t say why he was drawn to the playwright’s dark story about inherited traits and the changing nature of truth, but something he couldn’t name appealed to him. If nothing else, he was happy to immerse himself in a time at some remove from the daily realities of wartime London.


Chapter 8