The wreck at Sharpnose Point

This is a captivating mystery of the best kind - the sort that really happened. While walking through a cliff-top graveyard in the village of Morwenstow on the coast of Cornwall, Jeremy Seal stumbled across a wooden figurehead which once adorned the Caledonia, a ship wrecked on the coast below in 1842.

Through further investigation, he began to suspect the locals, and in particular the parson, Robert Hawker, of luring the ship to her destruction on Cornwall's jagged shore.

Wrecking is known to have been widespread along several stretches of England's coast.

But is that what happened in Morwenstow? Seal weaves history, travelogue and vivid imaginative reconstruction into a marvellous piece of detective work.