Tag: supernatural

The Dead Letter (1867) by Seeley Regester

February 15, 2023

The Dead Letter by Seeley Regester

6 stars (6/10 stars)

“My God! Murdered! Who do you suppose did it?”

The post office’s dead letter department is a place of last resort for mail with nowhere else to go. That makes it the perfect spot for Richard Redfield. Only a few years ago, Richard was on the brink of a promising legal career, respected by friends and colleagues. Now he buries himself among the lost letters, trying to hide from the past…until the past lands right on his desk. One of the dead letters has a very familiar postmark, “October 18, 1857, Blankville, New York.” It is the very date and location of the event he has been trying so hard to forget. Richard assumes that the dead letter office is the end of the line for him. Instead, it may be the beginning of his redemption. Continue reading “The Dead Letter (1867) by Seeley Regester”

The Uninvited (1942) by Dorothy Macardle

October 17, 2018

Book Cover of The Uninvited by Dorothy Macardle (1942)

8 Stars (8/10)

“I am sure that if spirits walk, it is in places that they have loved. That is why it seems foolish to be afraid of them […] Why should anyone be afraid of a happy ghost?”

Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald have finally found the perfect house in the Devonshire countryside. Cliff End even comes complete with its very own ghost, the tragic Mary Meredith, who met a mysterious death there fifteen years earlier. It makes a picturesque story, but rumors of ghosts are surely exaggerated.

The brother and sister soon find that living in a haunted house isn’t as jolly as they imagined. They are kept awake by moans in the night, strange white mists, chills that seem to pass right through them. Even worse, some unseen force seems to zero in on their deepest insecurities, driving them to despair.

The only one who’s not afraid of Cliff End is Stella Meredith, Mary’s daughter. She’s convinced the spirit of her mother would never hurt her. But nothing in this house is as it seems, and there may be room for one more ghost at Cliff End.

Continue reading “The Uninvited (1942) by Dorothy Macardle”

The Burning Court (1937) by John Dickson Carr

October 6, 2018

Book Cover of The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr 1937

10 Stars (10/10 stars)

“This is April, not Halloween. Women on broomsticks are a little out of my line. If you tell me that a woman put a spell on Mr. Miles Despard, and rubbed herself with ointment, and got into a dress several hundred odd years old, and consequently walked through that wall—well, all I’ve got to say is, I want a case that’ll at least get past the grand jury.”

Ted Stevens is a happy man. He loves his job as a book editor, his weekend home in a quaint Pennsylvania village, and, most of all, he loves his wife Marie. The only small shadow on his contentment is the recent death of his neighbor, Miles Despard—a bit untimely, but surely natural.

Then one day he opens a book and his life changes forever. Ted begins reading a manuscript about historical crime and sees the photograph of a woman executed for murder seventy years earlier. The woman in the photograph is his wife.

Continue reading “The Burning Court (1937) by John Dickson Carr”