THE DEVIL'S WORK
By
Rarely has the devil's work been so insidious as in this black hand dealt with authoritative skill. Stephen Green gets out of boarding school with no place to go but his father's lifeless house. Stephen misses the world of his mother where he'd learned to appreciate excellence in company, cuisine and conversation. He tries to adjust to the dingy English town, his father's barely diguised hostility and the housekeeper's hatred but his contemporaries resent his ""nancy boy"" tastes. He finds himself sinking in a labyrinth of despair until he meets the associates of the mysterious Mr. Someday, a financial tycoon who has bought up an immense decaying mansion in the town and is turning it into a gambling club. Stephen is given a job as assistant manager for the club which is having its grand opening on Halloween. Throughout, the reader is given hints of Mr. Someday's other interests--black magic for one and an obsession about Stephen for another. And then comes the special party in the ruined chapel. . . a solid, satanic chiller.