David Harcourt arrives in Edwardian London from Wyoming with American optimism and little else. He's found a respectable flat in a respectable building. What no one mentions is that the previous tenant, a promising young singer named Gwendoline Barnes, died there under circumstances the neighbors prefer not to discuss. The moment David crosses the threshold, something shifts. A faint sweetness lingers in the air. Doors close by themselves. And in the darkest hours, he feels a presence watching from the corners of the room. When Gwendoline's sister Violet appears, she's as beautiful as she is determined to unearth the truth about her sibling's death. As David falls deeper into the mystery, he discovers that the building holds secrets that stretch beyond Gwendoline's final night, and that some questions are dangerous to ask. The scent of violets becomes a warning, and the line between the living and the dead grows dangerously thin. Written in 1906 under the pseudonym Gordon Holmes, this is early Gothic mystery at its most atmospheric. It's a story about an outsider in a foreign city, the ghosts we carry, and the terrible things that happen when polite society is forced to confront its own silences.
