Description

For landscape painter Peer Rackstrom, the remote Island of Foscaldo is a quiet refuge from the world. It’s a place of ancient legends, a crumbling château, and a strange, derelict windmill perched precariously on the cliff’s edge – a structure the locals call la maison mouvante, the Moving House.

Rackstrom’s solitude is interrupted only by the discovery of a mysterious antique key bearing the name of Gamain, the notorious locksmith of the French Revolution, and the fleeting appearance of a beautiful girl in a sailboat. But the peace is soon shattered by the arrival of two men from Paris – a grotesque and dangerous murderer named Gabas and the cunning Inspector Prontout, who is hunting him.

One stormy night, Rackstrom witnesses the killer and a police agent enter the Moving House. Only one emerges. The next morning, Rackstrom finds himself not only entangled in a murder mystery but also trapped by a rising tide, fighting for his own survival.

First published in 1926, The Moving House of Foscaldo presents a world where history and legend collide, and the past is never as far away as it seems.