Search Results for: who-goes-there

“LAMB HOUSE is in Rye, an ancient town of East Sussex, England. It is very much a real place, even a famous one, yet The Haunting of Lamb House is as elusive to review as it must have been to write. It is safe to say that no one but Joan Aiken could have written it, not only because she was born in Rye and has the town in her bones as it were, but also because she has the power — shown in her other books — of evoking strange, often eerie events of the past and making other times, places and people vividly alive. This book goes further: She has taken the real history of Lamb House and interwoven happenings that are purely imaginary, working so skillfully that even those who have lived there can hardly tell which is which!”

So wrote novelist Rumer Godden, who also lived in Lamb House. She went on:

“For those who do not sense such things, The Haunting of Lamb House is a most skillful and intriguing interweaving of fact and fiction; to those who do, it is a memorable evocation. In either case it is a little masterpiece.”

Lamb House in Joan Aiken’s birth town of Rye in Sussex is said to be haunted. This is her story of what might have happened to cause the haunting: using the imagined diary of an earlier Mayor of Rye, Toby Lamb, whose father built the handsome Georgian house, and later episodes that might have occurred during the occupancy of two of its famous literary tenants – Henry James and E.F. Benson.

Joan Aiken was born in another haunted house owned by her father Conrad Aiken: Jeake’s House, just around the corner in Mermaid Street, Rye, which she also wrote about in Return to Harken House.

“Joan Aiken has written a clever book, kindling a whole world of feeling out of small macabre details, presenting to the senses a series of apprehensions of reality which seem to touch a completeness beyond themselves. An impressive achievement; I shivered as I admired” Robert Nye, The Guardian

“Joan Aiken’s artful web of truth and fancy is divided into three histories of haunting – the first employs Aiken’s considerable skill in a vivid evocative rendering of the old town of Rye when the house was built…followed by the twenty years of Henry James’ residence. The end is worth waiting for…where E.F.Benson encounters hideous apparitions and even an exorcism in the last enthralling twenty pages” Miranda Seymour, T.L.S.

“Aiken has conjured up a deliciously scary ghost story…her mastery of style serves her well in the creation of three separate voices. Those familiar with Henry James’s writing especially The Turn of The Screwwill derive special enjoyment from this novel, but there are shivers enough for any reader willing to acknowledge the possibility of ghosts and the reality of evil” U.S. Library Journal

“In three interlocking ghost stories this veteran British novelist places a fictional haunting within the history of a real house, and displays a masterly way with several contrasting narrative styles, sympathetically evoking some ghostly presences…the wayward spirit of the house and the growing number of literary presences which gradually take possession” Publisher’s Weekly

Cherry, Nebraska, population 312, is just off the highway between the sticks and the boonies. It’s where Dave Rhodes and his friends have lived all their lives. They own businesses, raise families, pay taxes, deal with odd neighbors, and, once or twice a month-just like their fathers before them-transform into wolves.

It’s not a bad life, but when one of the group members goes astray, it sets in motion a series of events that will threaten to destroy the delicate balance that has kept Dave and his clan off the radar. Between a son getting ready for his first transformation-called The Scratch-a wife with sordid secrets, a new sheriff who knows nothing of the creatures in his midst, and a mysterious man in a bow tie with a shady agenda, the middle of nowhere is about to get very dangerous.

WINNER OF THE 2018 BRAM STOKER AWARD FOR BEST ANTHOLOGY

It’s only water, so why should we fear large bodies of it, such as the sea or the ocean? However, when you’re all alone, you realize how scary a place it can be.

Stranded on a desert island, a young man yearns for objects from his past. A local from a small coastal town in England is found dead as the tide goes out. A Norwegian whaling ship is stranded in the Arctic, its crew threatened by mysterious forces. In the nineteenth century, a ship drifts in becalmed waters in the Indian Ocean, those on it haunted by their evil deeds. A surfer turned diver discovers there are things worse than drowning under the sea. Something from the sea is creating monsters on land.

In Devil and the Deep, award-winning editor Ellen Datlow shares an original anthology of horror that covers the depths of the deep blue sea. Whether its tales of murderous pirates who stalk the waters in search of treasure and blood, creatures that haunt the depths below?ones we’ve only seen in our nightmares, or storms that can swallow you whole, the open water can be a dangerous and terrifying place.

With stories from New York Times-bestsellers and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, and more, Devil and the Deep guarantees you’ll think twice before going back into the water.

Aleph is a machine mentality overseeing a future Earth largely bereft of humans, most of whom have sublimed into a virtuality.Remaining are the smug but cautious adherents of science. Amanda, still a teen at age 30, is a skilled violinist and mathematician but craves the applause of the Mall for some daring exploit.

In a nearby enclave live the rustic, non-scientific people who worship the god of their choice. In the center of their poly-religious valley a wicked tower has emerged, surely a tool of evil temptation. Far below, a supersonic railroad is being constructed. Amanda conceives a dangerous feat: to enter the valley and descend to the rushing train, hitching a mad ride to the next city.

Using a cyber “Liar bee,” she buzzes the ear of young Matthewmark, who chafes under the restrictions of his own narrow society. He agrees to aid Amanda and her friend Vikram Singh, but the scheme goes horribly wrong. Vik dies; Matthewmark’s brain is seriously damaged, although he recovers with advanced neurological prostheses. This treatment, condemned by his own people, allows him contact with the AI Aleph.

In a series of startling moves, Amanda graduates to adulthood (and her modish clipped speech patterns give way to this new sophistication), while Matthewmark explores uncanny and sometimes very funny opportunities in the Alephverse, climaxing in the dismantling of the solar system and its embrace by the hyperuniverse beyond ours. This is the Singularity, at last, the Transcension, and everyone lives happily ever after, for rather mindboggling values of “lives” and “happily.”

Noel Hutson considers himself a gentleman adventurer-but running guns in Morocco during Algeria’s revolution, he gets more than he bargained for.
Noel goes missing, and his brother Darrell Hutson comes to Tangier to search. Darrell soon finds himself immersed in a shady world of ruthless smugglers and nationalist Muslim fanatics.
When Noel disappeared, he took with him an enormous payment. Both sides think Darrell will lead them to it.
The stakes are unimaginably high-and Darrell isn’t the only one who could get hurt.

Lying off the coast of Monterey, Bird Island is favored with tranquil beaches, coves and rocky hills. The island is home to a finishing school for girls, and a picturesque old hotel-in desperate need of repair. The hotel owner must sell plots of the island to finance renovation and enlargement.
The buyers are an odd bunch: a whale hunter, an amateur photographer of artistic nudes, a fugitive from justice, a young poet who composes rhymes for greeting cards, and an explorer, accompanied by his pet baboon.
Everything goes wrong, to the extent that even Rexie, the cheese-loving hotel cat is affected! So much for tranquility, on Bird Island…
First published as Isle of Peril, Bird Isle mixes intrigue with humor, inspired by the great P.G. Wodehouse.

Detective Constable Henry Campion turns lone avenger when his childhood friend and colleague DC Fred Jordan is shot dead by a gangster who is spared the death sentence. And Campion is convinced there were two killers. To try to catch the second, Campion goes undercover as a spiv in a King’s Cross nightclub, the Full Moon.

But Campion’s adventures at the Full Moon draw him deeper into gangland, and closer to the woman of his dreams – his dead friend’s widow . . .

But is it love, or is Anne Jordan using Campion for her own ends?

With the Entente Cordiale still in its infancy, the Sûreté had assigned Inspector Gautier to keep a protective eye on English visitors to Paris for the racing at Longchamps. But it was not the English who engaged Gautier’s attention, but an Irish surgeon – Michael Breen.

Breen, fêted by the ladies of Paris, is accused of a trivial assault – and almost at once Princess Hélène’s daughter goes missing and a shop assistant at Au Bon Marché is found dead just as Breen flees the country. Inspector Gautier is hot on his heels to Dublin, whilst a third murder back in Paris complicates the affair for all involved.

Unexpectedly sent to Moscow to manage his firm’s stand at a world fair, Cristopher Battle feels that he may not be up to the job. Then his chairman is murdered and, after the discovery of a second body, Battle is convinced that the Russian Security Police are trying to kill him.

Fearful of violence, Battle goes on the run – and becomes emotionally entangled with a beautiful Russian woman who creates an entirely fresh set of problems . . .

After eight hard years in San Quentin prison, Runyan is out and ready to lead a quiet life – an honest life. But certain people have been planning for the day of his release – people who desperately want the two million dollars in diamonds Runyan was carrying just before he went to jail … Like the insurance investigator who arranged his parole. A beautiful woman who wants him alive. The unknown killer who definitely wants him dead.

Runyan goes to recover the diamonds from where he has stashed them, so he can buy his way out … but the diamonds are gone. Now he must pull another robbery – something he swore never to repeat – and use the proceeds to stay alive.

A driving lesson goes terribly worng. A random accident – or something more sinister?

Tragedy strikes when sixteen-year-old Rebecca Patton fatally injures a woman while having a driving lesson. The driving instructor, Andrew Newell, appears to be drunk at the crime scene, and Detective Katie Logan reckons this is a case of vehicular homicide. But when a handbag is retrieved, the victim is discovered to be Newell’s wife.

Tough, gritty, full of atmosphere, and with characters who engage you from the very first page, here is Grand Master Ed McBain at the top of his form.

‘No one writes a better crime novel than Charles Willeford’ Elmore Leonard

By day, Richard Hudson, woman-chaser and used-car salesman, works his crooked car lot with much success. By night, he returns home to a family of misfits. One day, seized by a feeling of terror and revulsion, he realises he’s wasting his life in the meaningless pursuit of money. His only hope, he decides, is to pursue his dream of making a movie.

Richard completes his cherished project, but forces beyond his control swiftly reject and destroy it. As a result, enraged and humiliated, he goes on a bender of epic proportions, drinking his way through the underbelly of Los Angeles and exacting a monstrous revenge on all who have crossed him.

The third book in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series, featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire.

Walt Longmire has been the Sheriff in Wyoming’s Absaroka County for 25 years, but nothing could have prepared him for the savage attack on his daughter, Cady, a Philadelphia lawyer who has unwittingly become embroiled in a political cover-up.

As Walt and his best friend, Henry Standing Bear, scour the city for clues, he gets help from his deputy Victoria Moretti and her family of Philly police. But Longmire wasn’t born yesterday. He’s willing to pull out all the stops to find Cady’s attacker and show the big city that this old-timer has a few moves left in his saddlebag of tricks.

‘Johnson’s pacing is tight and his dialogue snaps’ Entertainment Weekly

Irish-Italian detective Nick O’Hara, grandson of a Mafia don, knows who is responsible for his son’s death, but his hands are tied. Abandoned by his wife, he grows increasingly desperate, going into a tailspin from which he can see only one escape: revenge.

As Nick’s life goes into freefall, he must choose between duty, family loyalty and his desperate need for justice.

Harry Vaughan’s uncle has just passed away, providing the young man with a colossal fortune. Giving up his job, Harry goes back to his roots – and to Celia, the woman he loves.

But Harry Vaughan has lost part of his memory. He feels himself ten years older, suffers from headaches, meets people who know him but whom he doesn’t remember. When Celia’s husband is killed it becomes clear that someone is following Vaughan’s life. But who is this shadow and what do they want?

‘A real psychiatric shocker’ The Tablet

When Sara Dacre comes across a large red pendant at a twenty cent jewellery stall she is tempted to buy it – especially when she bumps into her friend Gerry Hone, who persuades her that it will brighten up her old grey taffeta.

But soon she finds herself at the centre of some strange events. On leaving the shop she and Gerry witness the scene of an accident – but nobody can agree what happened. And when Gerry takes her to an automat for coffee he goes to the counter to order – and never comes back …

‘Explosive’ Birmingham Post

With six days remaining until he goes to the electric chair for the murder of his wife, wealthy broker Robert Westland needs help, fast. He insists that he has been framed, and Bill Crane, a private detective with a method and manner all his own, must prove his client’s innocence.

In a mixture of the humorous and the macabre, Crane’s investigation, set against an evocative Depression-era backdrop, turns up more than a few queer characters – including a tight-lipped valet and a dypsomanic widow – who may or may not know something about who really murdered Mrs Westland.

A crime that isn’t reported; a mother who’s threatened…
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

Out walking in the snow with her young son, Mike, Sara Drew is the only witness to a particularly unpleasant car accident in which an elderly lady and her dog are killed. Nervous of going to the scene of the accident with a child, she reluctantly goes home. There she meets one of the drivers, and is appalled that he has no intention of reporting the incident. And he also threatens to hurt her son if she goes to the police.

But when Mike is kidnapped she contacts Detective Arthur Crook, who takes over the case and counters the wiles of desperate criminals . . .

An ordinary couple – but wherever they go, death follows…
Classic crime from one of the greats of the Detection Club

Mr Cobb is the third elderly invalid to die conveniently, if unexpectedly, in the house of Fred and Bessie Meadows. Yet who could suspect this responsible, honest couple? Nothing is too much trouble, yet wherever they go, death goes too. But their third crime involves them with Arthur Crook, and that’s when their luck turns.

Fans of the lawyer-sleuth know that his arrival on the scene brings action, and that every sort of cunning will be employed to ensure the innocent are kept safe and the guilty … trapped.

‘No author is more skilled at making a good story seem brilliant’ Sunday Express

The case started with a corpse. Nobody knew who he was. Next, a man named John Burke disappeared. But D.A. Doug Selby could not find his body.

Then Mrs Burke swore that the corpse and her missing husband were one and the same man. This should have solved both mysteries. All it did was run the D.A. up two different trees. Sure, the faces of the dead man and John Burke were exactly the same. The only trouble was that their fingerprints were different!

Impossible? That’s what Doug Selby thought too – until the killer struck again …

By the CWA Gold Dagger award-winning author of Other Paths to Glory

David Roche, a young double agent, is assigned to recruit British Intelligence Chief Dr David Audley into Soviet service. It isn’t long before Roche begins to doubt the information he has been given . . . and it isn’t long before he sees how he might use than information to free himself of his obligations to both sides.

Roche joins Audley and two friends at an ancient tower in the French countryside, and also meets with Lady Alexandra Champeney-Perowne – who shows him why it is so vital that he get out.

And out he goes, in an exciting denouement involving the KGB, British Intelligence and – out of the blue – a team of Algerian terrorists.

The Last Book of Jorkens, the sixth and last collection of Dunsany’s Jorkens tales to be published, is a collection of fantasy short stories around the character Joseph Jorkens. It was left unpublished on Dunsany’s death, and was finally issued in a limited first special edition in 2002. The book collects twenty-two short pieces by Dunsany.

The Jorkens stories are set in the London gentleman’s or adventurer’s club of which the title character is a member. They usually open with another member mentioning an interesting experience he has had; this rouses Jorkens, who in return for a whisky-and-soda (merely to “moisten his throat,” you understand!) goes the other member one better with an extraordinary tall tale, supposedly from his own past. His stories often tip well over the boundaries of the plausible, into the realms of fantasy, horror, or even science fiction, and his auditors can never be quite sure what proportion of what he relates was truly experienced and to what degree he might have embellished.

Jorkens Borrows Another Whiskey, the fifth collection of Dunsany’s Jorkens tales to be published, is a collection of fantasy short stories, narrated by Mr. Joseph Jorkens. The book collects thirty-four short pieces by Dunsany, and in one key story, Jorkens is joined in the story by his most common adversary, Terbut.

The Jorkens stories are set in the London gentleman’s or adventurer’s club of which the title character is a member. They usually open with another member mentioning an interesting experience he has had; this rouses Jorkens, who in return for a whisky-and-soda (merely to “moisten his throat,” you understand!) goes the other member one better with an extraordinary tall tale, supposedly from his own past. His stories often tip well over the boundaries of the plausible, into the realms of fantasy, horror, or even science fiction, and his auditors can never be quite sure what proportion of what he relates was truly experienced and to what degree he might have embellished.

The Fourth Book of Jorkens, the fourth collection of Dunsany’s Jorkens tales to be published, is a collection of fantasy short stories, narrated by Mr. Joseph Jorkens. It collects 33 short pieces by Lord Dunsany.

The Jorkens stories are set in the London gentleman’s or adventurer’s club of which the title character is a member. They usually open with another member mentioning an interesting experience he has had; this rouses Jorkens, who in return for a whisky-and-soda (merely to “moisten his throat,” you understand!) goes the other member one better with an extraordinary tall tale, supposedly from his own past. His stories often tip well over the boundaries of the plausible, into the realms of fantasy, horror, or even science fiction, and his auditors can never be quite sure what proportion of what he relates was truly experienced and to what degree he might have embellished.