The Scarlet Boy

'A variation on the theme of The Turn of the Screw in the manner of Graham Greene with an olive from The Cocktail Party and a dash of Dashiell Hammett.' Cyril Connolly

First published in 1961, The Scarlet Boy saw the versatile Arthur Calder-Marshall venturing into gothic terrain with a study in the paranormal. Historian George Grantley agrees to find a property for his school-friend Kit Everness, now a successful QC, in Grantley's home town of Wilchester. Grantley's eye falls on a place dear to him in childhood: Anglesey House, where his boyhood companion Charles Scarlet lived with his glamorous mother, Helen. But Charles committed suicide there, and some say the house is haunted. Grantley and Everness are undeterred; however, they will come to find their rational views tested, and the lives of their loved ones endangered.