Author: CAPES, B.E.J. [Bernard].
Title: The Mill of Silence.
Description: Chicago, Rand McNally 1897. Octavo publisher's illustrated cloth blocked in gilt and green. A bit used, a few spots, a large owner's name on the front fly; still a most acceptable copy. ¶ First edition of this long neglected thriller, a murder mystery soaked in horror and the uncanny, missed by bibliographers for a century. Doubtless the innocuous title and sylvan binding is partly to blame. An American book but an English story by an English writer, it was well enough described by the Star reviewer in Christchurch, New Zealand: "The author ... dearly loves the handling of the grim, the uncanny, and the morbid; he is a master in the painting of suffering humanity, suffering as a shuttle tossed by the hand of Fate." (Star, 1903, review of the later London edition). Not just humanity, our narrator can't even walk home through the woods without stumbling over a bunny "with glazing eyes and the stab of the ferret tooth behind her ear."Secret after secret is unveiled in paroxysms of terror and hatred but babbling madness usually raises more questions than it answers. Does anyone survive the book? I'm still wondering.

Keywords: literature fiction thrillers mystery fantasy c19th England America occult ghosts