THE STRANGER HOUSE is located in the village of Illthwaite
in Cumbria, England has seen a lot of visitors throughout
the years. Now a couple of strangers will unearth the
mysteries that have remained hidden for hundreds of years,
and cause a village to give up their secrets.
Samantha Flood, a mathematician from Australia who is
better known as Sam, has come to Illthwaite to search out
the history of her family. She learned upon the death of
her grandmother that her father was adopted. She was able
to piece the details together to learn that her father's
mother was one of the orphaned children that had been
shipped from England to Australia during the 1960's. The
only clue she had was that the girl carried a piece of
paper that had the name Sam Flood and the village of
Illthwaite written upon it.
Miguel Madero has also come to Illthwaite to research his
family. He was studying to be a priest, but now he is
more of a scholar doing research for his thesis. He is
writing about Catholic families during the reign of
Elizabeth I, and his focus is on the commoners instead of
the highly publicized cases. On a more personal level, he
is looking into the history of a local family and their
possible connection to his lost ancestor.
Together their missions will collide and wreak havoc on a
village that has a habit of keeping secrets. They
encounter a few friendly faces and through them they are
able to gather the truth about each of their heritages,
but it is not without a price. Will they be able to live
with what they find out? Was the truth really what they
wanted?
Reginald Hill has put together an incredible tale using
historic details that relate to the current situation.
The characters are a very entertaining part of the story.
Each individual is relevant in some way to both Sam and
Miguel. THE STRANGER HOUSE is a wonderful combination of
mystery, paranormal, historical, and even romance.
For more than five hundred years weary travelers have
been coming to the Stranger House-an out-of-the-way inn in
the tiny village of Illthwaite in Cumbria, England. Now two
very different visitors have arrived here on the same dank
and dreary autumn afternoon, each one driven by curiosity .
. . and perilous purpose.
Australian math wizard Samantha "Sam" Flood is here
searching for answers to a disturbing family mystery. Miguel
Madero, former novice priest-turned-historical scholar, is
exploring the links between an ancestor's bizarre
disappearance and the people of Illthwaite. But Sam and Mig
are not welcome in this town of secrets and silences. And
when their personal quests become strangely intertwined, two
determined seekers will find themselves drawn ever deeper
into a fetid morass of deceit, mystery, and violence as they
race to uncover the shocking truth about who they really are.