The Mystery of the Sea

When Archibald Hunter comes to Cruden Bay, Aberdeenshire, for his annual holiday, he looks forward to a tranquil few days by the sea. But as he sits by the bridge he is disturbed by a strange vision of a couple he had seen earlier, the man now carrying a small black coffin. Shortly afterwards he discovers their child has drowned. The following day, speaking to a fisherman, he is again confronted by a portent of doom. As he sets out to sea, the other men speak his name - Lauchlane Macleod: the very same whose death Gormala had foretold. But how can this gaunt old woman know such things? Where are these terrible visions, whose force he seems unable to counter, taking him? What is the significance of the pages of cipher which once belonged to Don de Escoban? Can he solve the Mystery of the Sea?

Abraham "Bram" Stoker (1847 - 1912) was an Irish author, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned. Stoker was bedridden with an unknown illness until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years."