Mary Roberts Rinehart 
Red Lamp 

A haunted seaside mansion – a series of suspicious deaths…Perfect gothic crime fiction for fans of Shirley Jackson 'Showcases her extraordinary gift for sustaining high levels of tension … reminiscent of Shirley Jackson … and she excels at the tantalising tease’ Publishers Weekly William Porter has just inherited a seaside manor. As an academic, he doesn’t believe the rumours that it is haunted – nor is he suspicious of the circumstances behind the inheritance – after all, lots of people die suddenly from heart attacks, and his uncle Horace was just unlucky. His wife, however, refuses to live in the main house and will only move into the lodge elsewhere on the grounds. And she may be right: soon after they arrive, Porter sees a shadowy figure illuminated by the red glow of Horace’s writing lamp, the very light that shone on the scene of his death. Even Porter’s scepticism is tested to the limit when a rash of murders occurs across the countryside. And if Porter isn’t very careful, he risks implicating himself in the crimes he hopes to solve.