Denis Bracknel

A story in the tradition of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw and with a slow-building dread reminiscent of the works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Reid's novel opens with the arrival of young tutor Hubert Rusk, just down from Oxford, at the home of the well-to-do Bracknel family. Though the entire family is odd, none of them is stranger than Rusk's pupil, fifteen-year-old Denis, a highly imaginative, unworldly boy who is attuned to the occult and performs bizarre rituals by moonlight. As Rusk befriends Denis and gains his trust, he gradually learns the startling and horrific truth behind the boy's behaviour and will have to struggle to save him from a terrible fate...