In 1874 a young woman, her illegitimate daughter, and the man who was paid to marry her, leave Mount Gambier in South Australia to take up a selection in Lubeck, near Murtoa.

Two days later they are camped on the Maryvale Estate near Edenhope and that is the last that the family are seen until the remains of the young woman and her daughter are discovered ten years later on the property.

Where is the husband? Did he murder them and if so why? And was there really a ghost protecting the site where the bodies were buried?

This is a true story with remarkable twists and turns, and was one of the greatest murder mysteries in Australian history.

This is a book that has been thoroughly researched, and is more than just a murder story. It is a chronicle of the struggle and hardships that our early settlers had to endure, particularly the Langley Family with their seventeen children.

The 19th Century was a time when the new colony of Australia was trying to forge an identity, and it was settlers like Charles Langley and his family who worked tirelessly to bring this about.

Charles Langley who fathered seventeen children eventually moved to a selection in Rupanyup South, where he served as a councillor on the old Dunmunkle Shire Council.

The True Story of the Maryvale Murders is a book that you will not wish to miss.