"It won't be much longer now. Keep your head and hold your tongue."

In Shadows Before, events from the past are the catalyst for murder. In hope of a fresh start after being acquitted of the murder of his sister-in-law, Matthew Weir has moved his family to Spanwater, a remote manor in the Cotswolds. But his heiress wife Catherine is traumatised by her sister's death and Matthew's trial, and has retreated into childhood memories, believing she is living in the Welsh border cottage of her childhood. Hired to keep Catherine safe in her wanderings, companion Aurelia Brett is fleeing poverty and hunger in London, Matthew's brother Augustus is trying to elude past debts. His nephew is haunted by the death of his father. Then Catherine dies suddenly, and arsenic is found in her home-made tea. Evidence suggests someone in the house, but Chief Inspector Pardoe finds conflicting clues and suspicious behaviour among Spanwater's neighbours too. When a second death occurs, Pardoe - and the reader - must decide which shadows points to the perpetrator and why.

Dorothy Bowers (1902 - 1948) was a champion of "fair play" mysteries, in which all the clues are cunningly displayed within the context of the story.