Rustication

A gothic masterpiece from the best-selling author The Quincunx

It is winter 1863, and Richard Shenstone, aged seventeen, has been sent down from Cambridge under a cloud of suspicion. Addicted to opium and tormented by sexual desire, he finds temporary refuge in a dilapidated old mansion on the southern English coast inhabited by his newly impoverished mother and his sister Effie. Soon, graphic and threatening letters begin to circulate among his neighbours, and Richard finds himself the leading suspect in a series of crimes and misdemeanours ranging from vivisection to murder. Atmospheric, lurid, and brilliantly executed, Rustication will appeal to fans of Sarah Waters and Michel Faber, and confirms Charles Palliser's reputation as a writer at once mesmerising and meticulous.