Walter Craig was a clever scientist. As a young man he took away all the honours and prizes and some of his work was ground-breaking. But after he became seriously ill, his genius faded, and he needed the help of an assistant. When Silas Webb was appointed to the job he seemed the perfect choice, but he always preferred to work alone, even in secret. Then, quite suddenly, Webb disappeared. Why ? Later, Craig opens a prestigious scientific journal and finds a paper, containing his own work, in detail, together with the significant results he had worked out. The research is his and his alone. But the author of the paper is Dr Silas Webb. Craig determines that he will hunt Webb down and exact revenge. Were it not for a terrifying twist of circumstance, he might have succeeded. Susan Hill has won the Whitbread, Somerset Maugham and John Llewelyn Rhys prizes, as well as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She has written over 55 books in several genres, including the ghost story, THE WOMAN IN BLACK. The stage adaption is still running in London’s West End after 25 years. I’M THE KING OF THE CASTLE has been a GCSE set text. She has also published collections of short stories, fiction for children, several non fiction books and the highly successful crime novel series about the detective Simon Serrailler. SUSAN HILL is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of King’s College, London, and was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Honours of 2012
Author
Susan Hill was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1942. Her hometown was later referred to in her novel A Change for the Better (1969) and some short stories especially "Cockles and Mussels". She attended Scarborough Convent School, where she became interested in theatre and literature. Her family left Scarborough in 1958 and moved to Coventry where her father worked in car and aircraft factories. Hill states that she attended a girls’ grammar school, Barr's Hill. Her fellow pupils included Jennifer Page, the first Chief Executive of the Millennium Dome. At Barrs Hill she took A levels in English, French, History and Latin, proceeding to an English degree at King's College London. By this time she had already written her first novel, The Enclosure which was published by Hutchinson in her first year at university. The novel was criticised by The Daily Mail for its sexual content, with the suggestion that writing in this style was unsuitable for a "schoolgirl". Her next novel Gentleman and Ladies was published in 1968. This was followed in quick succession by A Change for the Better, I'm the King of the Castle, The Albatross and other stories, Strange Meeting, The Bird of Night, A Bit of Singing and Dancing and In the Springtime of Year, all written and published between 1968 and 1974. In 1975 she married Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells and they moved to Stratford upon Avon. Their first daughter, Jessica, was born in 1977 and their second daughter, Clemency, was born in 1985. Hill has recently founded her own publishing company, Long Barn Books, which has published one work of fiction per year. Librarian's Note: There is more than one author by this name.
