Screaming in the Castle

"In this book I have gathered twenty-five essays and articles written over nearly as many years. Their area of interest is mostly historical, biographical and literary - people, places, biooks, journeys, puzzles. Quite a few belong in the puzzle category, among threm three mysterious disappearances, two unmarkled graves, two murder cases, one missing Shakespeare play and one enigmatic portrait discovered in a Herefordshire attic. ... The traces I am thinking of are those of 'vestiges or marks' of past lives which are otherwise called historical evidence ... the bits and pieces of primary evidence; the raw data, the eyewitness report, the casual detail. ..."--Preface, p. xiii.