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Tales of Murder and Mystery: The Shrouded Walls/April's Grave/The Devil on Lammas Night
Tales of Murder and Mystery
Three dark, dangerous and utterly thrilling short novels from the wonderful Susan Howatch.
The Shrouded Walls
Although it begins as a marriage of convenience, Marianne finds herself falling in love with Axel, the husband she hardly knows. That is, until he takes her to Haraldsdyke, the lonely house in the middle of the Kent marshes, where the atmosphere becomes oppressive with witchcraft and murder...
April's Grave
Three years after they broke up, Karen and Neville decide to resume their life together, and they return to the isolated Highland croft where April, Karen's sister, had shattered their marriage. Since then, the selfish and beautiful April has vanished…...
The Devil on Lammas Night
When Tristan Poole moved into Colwyn Court, in a remote Welsh seaside village, what was he planning? Nicola Morrison suspects foul play, particularly when sudden illnesses, accidents, and deaths shatter the peace…...
Three dark, dangerous and utterly thrilling short novels from the wonderful Susan Howatch.
The Shrouded Walls
Although it begins as a marriage of convenience, Marianne finds herself falling in love with Axel, the husband she hardly knows. That is, until he takes her to Haraldsdyke, the lonely house in the middle of the Kent marshes, where the atmosphere becomes oppressive with witchcraft and murder...
April's Grave
Three years after they broke up, Karen and Neville decide to resume their life together, and they return to the isolated Highland croft where April, Karen's sister, had shattered their marriage. Since then, the selfish and beautiful April has vanished…...
The Devil on Lammas Night
When Tristan Poole moved into Colwyn Court, in a remote Welsh seaside village, what was he planning? Nicola Morrison suspects foul play, particularly when sudden illnesses, accidents, and deaths shatter the peace…...
- GenresFiction
566 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Susan Howatch
95 books566 followersSusan Howatch (b. 1940) is a British novelist who has penned bestselling mysteries, family sagas, and other novels. Howatch was born in Surrey, England. She began writing as a teen and published her first book when she moved to the United States in 1964. Howatch found global success first with her five sagas and then with her novels about the Church of England in the twentieth century. She has now returned to live in Surrey.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 26, 2022
A really interesting insight into the development of one of my favourite author’s creative writing style. Although short novels, fans can easily track to later, more mature work. This includes settings (Gower Peninsula from The Wheel of Fortune), themes-occult (The Heartbreaker). Also names Gywneth,Evan, Neville (The Wheel of Fortune & Starbridge novels). Echoes like following someone who never looks back (The Wheel of Fortune), the scene on the unconsecrated chapel (Starbridge) all felt that younger versions of a favourite friend!
July 4, 2018
Good very entertaining and a quick read for the summer
October 1, 2012
These three novels have only murder in common. The Shrouded Walls is a "woman in front of the house" book -- in my youth (and perhaps still), the book jackets of such books were prone to feature a young woman in a flowing gown standing in front of a large, menacing dwelling. Plotwise, it has features in common with Georgette Heyer's Regency romances, with the addition of a sense of menace that becomes all too real. But Howatch, at least at that point in her career, did not write historical characters well. Although the protagonists make a marriage of convenience, they seem to talk and think not very differently from their 1960s counterparts in the other two books bound with this one.
In April's Grave, a woman who believes her twin sister maliciously broke up her marriage realizes three years later that the sister (April) hasn't been seen or heard from since. On a trip back to England, she and her (not-yet-divorced) husband decide to try for a reconciliation -- but can she get past her suspicions about whether April is still alive? Well-plotted, and without the anachronisms that plague The Shrouded Walls.
The Devil on Lammas Night is something else again -- a romantic suspense thriller with more than a touch of the supernatural. Susan Howatch had been known to me for a good many years as someone who wrote books my mother liked to read for relaxation, until I happened on her Starbridge series and the three related books that followed it (they deal with factions in the Church of England and the personalities of various adherents, and if you think this sounds dull, all I can say is they kept me reading feverishly till the end.) In The Devil on Lammas Night, I saw inklings of Howatch's interest in the problem of evil and her belief in its supernatural existence. All three books kept me interested, but none held a candle to the later works.
In April's Grave, a woman who believes her twin sister maliciously broke up her marriage realizes three years later that the sister (April) hasn't been seen or heard from since. On a trip back to England, she and her (not-yet-divorced) husband decide to try for a reconciliation -- but can she get past her suspicions about whether April is still alive? Well-plotted, and without the anachronisms that plague The Shrouded Walls.
The Devil on Lammas Night is something else again -- a romantic suspense thriller with more than a touch of the supernatural. Susan Howatch had been known to me for a good many years as someone who wrote books my mother liked to read for relaxation, until I happened on her Starbridge series and the three related books that followed it (they deal with factions in the Church of England and the personalities of various adherents, and if you think this sounds dull, all I can say is they kept me reading feverishly till the end.) In The Devil on Lammas Night, I saw inklings of Howatch's interest in the problem of evil and her belief in its supernatural existence. All three books kept me interested, but none held a candle to the later works.
March 29, 2009
Got this book because I love Susan Howatch. These earlier stories aren't up to her later stuff, but still a compelling read.
November 23, 2015
A superb set of short stories by a master storyteller.
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February 12, 2016
murder mystery set in marshy England early 1800
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews