Todd, Charles - THE MURDER STONE

[LJ Roberts]

THE MURDER STONE (Gothic Suspense)- VG Charles Todd – Standalone
Bantam, 2003 – Hardcover

Their grandfather, Francis Hatton, raised Francesca Hatton and her four male cousins, all orphaned at an early age. Each of the cousins has been killed in the Great War, and now Francisca is alone to grieve the death of her beloved grandfather, whom she thought she knew. But at the reading of his will, she reads a letter cursing him and his heirs, she inherits two properties about which she never knew, people turn up at the funeral demanding items about which she did not know, and Richard Leighton appears on her doorstep blaming Francis for the disappearance of his mother.

If you’re expecting a book in the same style as Todd’s Inspector Ian Rutledge series, you will be disappointed. However, if you love Gothics, as do I having started Victoria Holt and the early books of Mary Stewart, you will be delighted. There is that underlying air of tension from the first page and twists aplenty along the way to a dramatic conclusion and classic epilogue. I am always looking for a new, good suspenseful Gothic. And this is it.