Talk of the Devil

This story, which is set in the West Country, is a tale of a witch-hunt with a warning running through it - that those who indulge in such pastimes must be prepared to find themselves a part of that mysterious conspiracy which seeks - on a low level through the mumbo-jumbo of Black Magic, or no a higher level through the unlrelenting quest for power - to enslave man.
How did Phyllis Acton, Justice of the Peace, eminent public figure, really meet her death on Midsummer Eve in a moorland cottage, in the year of Munich? The answer to that question opens up many others and is pursued by Philip Hayes, a novelist, in the present day; and in the quest for truth he comes perilously near to those sins of pride and jealousy which he smells in others.