Old House of Fear

Description

"Old House of Fear" by Russell Kirk is a novel written in the mid-20th century. This Gothic suspense tale follows young attorney Hugh Logan, sent by industrialist Duncan MacAskival to purchase his ancestral Hebridean island of Carnglass, where a forbidding castle, hostile locals, and shadowy interlopers close ranks against him. Rumors of violence at sea, strange legends, and a reclusive Lady MacAskival deepen the mystery as Logan presses toward the Old House of Fear. The opening of the novel sets a menacing tone: islanders glimpse a pillar of flame and gunfire at Carnglass while, in Michigan, Duncan MacAskival fruitlessly tries to buy the island until a water-stained, urgent note summons “confidential agents.” He dispatches Hugh Logan, who studies the fortress’s layered architecture, the clan’s harsh history, and eerie lore from an old pamphlet—tales of a “Third Eye,” lost chessmen, and a man-goat legend. In Glasgow, Logan meets obstruction: a slippery “commission agent” (Dowie), an attempted mugging in a wynd, and a nervous, pseudo-military Captain Gare who tries to bribe him off and flees when Logan bluffs knowledge of “Jackman.” Undeterred, Logan goes via Oban to South Uist, hires a dour fisherman to drop him by dinghy on a hidden shore, survives a perilous run over knife-like reefs, and takes refuge in a deserted black house at Dalcruach—drying out, regaining strength, and preparing to push inland toward the mysteries of Carnglass. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Gothic fiction
• Americans -- Scotland -- Fiction
• PS