The Stranger Diaries

In the wake of a divorce, Clare Cassidy, the heroine of this gripping standalone from Mary Higgins Clark Award winner Griffiths (the Ruth Galloway mysteries), accepts a job teaching English at Talgarth High, whose West Sussex campus includes the home of Victorian writer R.M. Holland, best known for his chilling story “The Stranger.” Five years later, Clare and her 15-year-old daughter, Georgia, have settled into local life, and Clare has started work on a Holland biography. Then colleagues begin dying in violent ways reminiscent of “The Stranger,” and Clare discovers mysterious notes written in her personal diaries. Alternating among the voices of Clare, Georgia, and Det. Sgt. Harbinder Kaur, who investigates the killings, Griffiths weaves a tale replete with ghosts, the occult, forbidden desire, and murder. Excerpts from “The Stranger” build the eerie atmosphere, though the tale’s denouement and the killer’s identity may disappoint some readers. Still, aficionados of such gothic classics as Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, which the killer may have read, will find this a satisfying novel for a rainy night. Agent: Kirby Kim, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)