An 18th-century will stipulates that a large estate will go to a distant relative, but there is a condition: the beneficiary's family must change its name to Goode and adopt the family coat of arms. The beneficiary accepts the rural Yorkshire estate, but the family never changes its name from Hotham. Nearly 200 years later, in 1973, a Goode descendent threatens to dispossess the Hothams, until murder prevents the plan from succeeding.The inspector appointed to the case is left with the unenviable task of discovering who, in the cast of suspects, has the most urgent need to pursue alternative plans. Author Julius Falconer takes readers on a jaunt through history in The Will of Joan Goode 1793. The novelist also lives in Yorkshire, "but unfortunately, not on an ancestral estate."