Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery

The arrival of Reginald Baynes Rayton in the isolated settlement of Samson's Mill throws a quiet community into unease. It begins with a friendly poker game, but when a card surfaces marked with two unsettling red crosses, the atmosphere shifts from casual to poisonous. Superstition spreads like wildfire through the backwoods. Jim Harley's strange behavior during the game raises suspicion, and his cryptic warning to young David Marsh to stay away from his sister Nell ignites a dangerous rivalry. But the card's meaning remains terrifyingly unclear - is it a threat, a warning, or something beyond the natural? When David suffers a brutal canoe accident on the Teakettle River, leaving him with a broken arm, the community's anxieties spiral deeper into paranoia. The red crosses seem to hover over everything, transforming neighbors into suspects and turning the backwoods settlement into a pressure cooker of secrets, jealousy, and dread. Roberts crafts a moody, atmospheric tale where rural isolation amplifies every whisper and gesture, making the reader wonder which threat is more dangerous: the supernatural omen or the human hearts around it.