Other editions of book The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral

From Publishers Weekly: Chilly, concise and utterly spooky, this novel is among the late British author's best works. A first-person narrative--liberally larded with bits of Northern English slang--propels the story at a headlong pace, at the same time incorporating intriguing hints of musty medieval history. Not long after he takes on the job of restoring the southwest tower of Muncaster Cathedral, steeplejack Joe Clarke senses--in the very stonework itself--a sinister force that seems to emanate from one particularly foul-looking gargoyle. Joe's suspicions are confirmed when his young son, Kevin, sleepwalks to the tower, spouts archaic Latin and, with much tooth-baring, fights all efforts to remove him. Though Joe eventually succeeds in rescuing his "lad," the entity in the tower finds easier prey in another little boy, discovered dead, having either fallen or jumped from the spire. With the help of a curmudgeonly detective-sergeant and the trendy but essentially good Reverend Morris, Joe searches through the cathedral's history for the knowledge that will enable him to destroy the bloodthirsty gargoyle's power. The tower's secret is indeed a whopper, fittingly capping the unrelenting suspense that precedes its revelation. Ages 10-up.

Steeplejack Joe Clark climbed his first factory chimney when he was four years old. Steeplejacking had been in his family for five generations. Not much frightened him. Certainly not stone. So when Joe is offered the lucrative job of repairing the weathercock and stonework on one of Muncaster Cathedral’s spires, he can’t believe his good fortune. But from the moment he saw the medieval gargoyle - lichen colored and hollowed-eyed - he felt uneasy, as if he were being watched. But he wasn’t going to let a few superstitious fears get in the way of his job. Stone was stone, it was all the same. Then terrible things begin to happen, including the deaths of two innocent boys who fell from the cathedral tower. What terrible evil had them in its grip, and why does the gargoyle seem to be drawing Joe to his doom?