ANCHORESS OF SHERE

This exceptional thriller from British author Moorcraft, a film producer and former war correspondent, exhibits a rare quality of intelligence and imagination, with a remarkable depth of feeling for the book's characters and their predicaments. Be forewarned that there's nothing cozy or comforting about this engrossing, subtle historical, which centers on a spiritual quest into Christian mysticism and smoothly alternates between past and present. In 1329, Christine Carpenter, an actual personage who lived in the village of Shere in the Surrey woodlands, had herself walled up in a church cell to live out her remaining days in prayer and meditation. In our own time, scholars have come to the village to study the legendary "Anchoress of Shere" to try to understand her drastic decision. Among them is Father Michael Duval, whose interest in Christine's story has grown into a psychotic obsession. Duval has kidnapped and killed six young women in an attempt to reproduce his crazed image of Christine. Now he has seized another victim, Marda Stewart, a bright and courageous lady who knows her only chance to survive is to play an intellectual cat-and-mouse game with her maniacal captor. The resultant suspense will keep the reader riveted to the very end of this brilliantly original tale. (Apr. 22)

FYI:Moorcraft is also the author of African Nemesis: War and Revolution in Southern Africa (1990) and What the Hell Am I Doing Here?: Travels with an Occasional War Correspondent (1995).