Septimus and the Stone of Offering

(Paperback, Main)

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A mysterious fire on a Welsh hillside on a clear April morning; the remains of a white bird lying in ash on a tombstone with a dagger in its breast; no wonder the Reverend Septimus Treloar, ex-CID Chief Inspector, thinks there's something worth investigating in the small village of Hafod Maenen. With only a handful of clues at his disposal but a great deal of canny instinct, Septimus is drawn into a revolving plot concerning political conspiracy, ancient rites and dark magic powers at work in the depths of the Welsh valleys. In this, the third of his wonderful Septimus series for young adults, Stephen Chance once more depicts his eccentric hero as he wittingly plays his hand against the forces of evil. Thrillingly plotted, yet with a sense of humour that enlivens the detective story-telling, Septimus and the Stone Offering (1976) is, in the words of The Listener: 'grippingly told . . . as effective in catching the strange, precise landscape, over and under the surface, as in understanding its humans.'

Author Bio

Stephen Chance is the pseudonym of Philip William Turner. Born in British Colombia, Canada, in 1925 to English parents, he returned to England in 1926. He was raised in Leicestershire and served in the Royal Navy as an engineer from 1953 to 1946, before resuming his education at Worcester College, Oxford, graduating in 1949. He married in 1950 and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England the following year. The father of two children, he was awarded the Carnegie Medal in 1965 for his childrens novel, The Grange at High Force. His young adult series starring Reverend Septimus, written under the name Stephen Chance, was published throughout the 1970s to huge popular acclaim. He died in 2006.