A new masterpiece of English Gothic literature! The loudest debut since the release of “The Thirteenth Tale” by Diana Setterfield. Family secrets and ominous predictions, original characters and melodramatic plot twists - everything is abundantly present in this fascinating and truly English book. If Diana Setterfield in her “The Thirteenth Tale” reminded the reader of the novels of the Bronte sisters, then F. E. Higgins plunges us into the mysterious atmosphere of the stories of Dickens and Oscar Wilde. Ludlow Horkins, insidiously betrayed by his own parents (the narration, as once in Stevenson's Treasure Island, comes mainly from the perspective of the young hero), finds himself in a small and very strange town, where almost every resident has something to hide, where the bookseller is ready to to kill for the sake of a priceless copy, where the moneylender pawns people's secrets. What secrets does the “Black Book of Secrets” contain, for which people are ready to do anything? This is what our hero has to find out in this fascinating mystery novel.