pedanther

Yes, it's pretty... gruesome.

As a real obscurity I have on the shelves "For Us in the Dark" by Naomi Royde Smith (my copy apparently inscribed by the original owner E. Jones in March 1939), which I picked up at random in a charity shop and paid 50p for because I couldn't put it down again. A very odd (and intended, apparently, by the author as explicitly Catholic in its sensibilities, although none of the principal characters are) but lyrical and compelling book apparently based on the circumstances of an ancient murder trial in 17th-century Italy; reminds me rather of Elizabeth Goudge with its moments of beauty and horror, and sympathetic insights into all the characters, even the most misguided or conventionally trivial-minded.