The Stranger House

by Reginald Hill

A stunning psychological thriller set in Cumbria past and present, from the award-winning author of the Dalziel and Pascoe series

Things move slowly in the tiny Cumbrian village of Illthwaite, but all that's about to change.

Post-grad Sam Flood and historian Miguel Mercado first meet at The Stranger House, Illwaithe’s local inn. Sam is there to find information on her grandmother, who left four decades before, while Mig’s research stretches back to the English Reformation, four centuries ago.

The pair have nothing in common, yet their paths become increasingly entangled as they pursue their separate quests. Together they will discover who to trust and who to fear in this ancient village where the inhabitants are determined to keep the past buried.

• ISBN13: 9780007351619
• Publish Date: 12 November 2009 (first published 4 July 2005)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 640
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

Reginald Hill has written dozens of books, but this is the first one that I have read. The Stranger House follows two people, Australian mathematician Samantha Flood and Spanish ex-almost-priest Miguel Madero, who travel to a small British town called Illthwaite to search out the history of their respective families. The novel is filled with a lot of coincidences, a small dash of the supernatural, a bunch of eccentric and memorable characters, and so many twists that you're still twisting in the final pages.

It could be really preposterous, the way that Sam and Miguel arrive at the exact same moment with interlocking stories. However, if you take Miguel at his word that ghosts have guided him through his life to this moment, and accept this as a semi-ghost story, it becomes easier to swallow as well as a more interesting story.

I liked the relationships between everyone, and I especially liked that the female lead is a mathematical genius. How often does someone create a female character like that? There is also a generous sprinkling of various parts of history, which is always a plus. I'm definitely going to check out a few more of Hill's novels, including a long-running series about Yorkshire detectives.