Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels

Houses of Stone by Barbara Michaels

It is a find of inestimable value for Karen Holloway. The battered manuscript she holds in her hand--written in the nineteenth century and bearing the mysterious attribution Ismene--could prove a boon to the eager young English professor's career. But Karen's search for the author's true identity is carrying her into the gray shadows of the past, to places fraught with danger and terror. For the deeper she delves into Ismene's strange tale of gothic horror, the more she is haunted by the suspicion that the long-dead author was writing the truth . . . and that even now she is guiding Karen's investigation, leading her to terrible secrets hidden behind the cold walls of houses of stone.

Elizabeth Peters (writing as Barbara Michaels) grew reared in Illinois and received her Ph.D. there. in Egyptology from the prestigious Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. The Mystery Writers of America called Peters Grandmaster at the inaugural Anthony Awards in 1986, the Mystery Writers of America named him Grandmaster at the Edgar(R) Awards in 1998, and Malice Domestic honored him with The Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. In western Maryland, she lives in a old farmhouse.