The Small Hand by Susan Hill

In this little ghost story, Hill reworks some of the elements of the Turn of the Screw to create a haunting psychological tingler. Adam Snow is an antiqarian book dealer, travelling all over the world to find rare books for his clients. Returning to London by car across the Downs he becomes lost and ends up at a dilapidated abandoned house with extensive gardens. As he wanders in the dusk he feels quite distictly the hand of a small child slip into his own, but there is no one there. The owner of the hand goes with him to an isolated monastery in France where Adam has gone in search of a Shakespeare First Folio and becomes malign. Snow begins to doubt his sanity and safety and speaks to his brother Hugo, who has recovered from a mental breakdown, about his experience. Compelled, he returns to the garden having been given some information about its history, and sets in motion a train of events with tragic consequences. I liked the way that the story twisted and turned, but that the outcome seemed elegant and 'right', though not predictable.