Within the framework of the classic Gothic suspense

thriller, Jon Godden has written a haunting and psy-

chologically complex novel set in England today. It is

a novel that moves from the reassuringly cozy and

familiar to the nightmarish, all the more terrifying

for its setting: a formal and sunlit English country

garden.

Grace Maitland at 75 has arranged her life to suit

herself. When her husband was alive she travelled

with him around the world; now she prefers a quiet,

circumscribed existence--seeing a few old friends who

live nearby, taking part in the annual flower show, giv-

ing lunch to her grandchildren when they drive up

from London, painting a little. But mostly she occupies

herself wkh her garden--her joy, her pride, her crown-

ing achievement. In her garden she is never lonely or

bored.

But her stepdaughter is beginning to suggest that

it might be too much for one elderly woman alone and

that possibly Grace might prefer to give up the house

and move into a flat with "window-boxes, perhaps a

little roof garden." Grace knows she would stifle in a

flat, but the garden is getting frightfully overgrown,

so it seems like a bit of serendipitous luck when a

battered white van drives up to the house and a young

man steps from it, introducing himself as Ben Halden

and saying he has heard she might need a gardener

and may he apply.

Grace is charmed, and during the long summer

days that she and Ben spend working side by side

among the flowers, drinking companionable cups of

tea in the kitchen, speaking together of the past, the

present, and the future, a strange, strong friendship

begins to form and grow. As the summer continues

Grace feels awakening within herself a long-dormant