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The Castle of Heavenly Bliss
Paperback
Series: Sixties, Book 5
Publisher: Gerard Wilson
Published: Aug 9 2022
Pages: 704
Weight: 2.24
Height: 1.55 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE
It is 1975. GERDA VROUWENDIJK, under the name Edith Bicknell, arrives in the isolated rural town of Binawarra to take a teaching position at the local high school. Ms Vrouwendijk is confident she can keep her disguise, purpose, and sinister connections hidden. But she has not reckoned on Florence Barker. Independent Miss Barker, of mature age, outwardly severe, and feared by the townspeople ('you will call me Miss Barker'), is not at all what she seems. Nor has the memory of a brief meeting fifteen years earlier in Middelburg, Holland, with the crippled local priest, Fr van Engelen, come back to Ms Vrouwendijk. These slips in her otherwise meticulous planning will prove critical.
Canny Miss Barker and Fr van Engelen set about discovering what Edith Bicknell is doing in their obscure little country town, and why she is interested in the beautiful, outwardly aloof Estella Winterbine. Her motivations seem ideological, but exactly what that ideology is remains a mystery.
A tense game of cat and mouse follows as Ms Vrouwendijk's manipulation of people and events becomes ever more complex. When a senior teacher is found dead at the bottom of a peak (called Death Rock by the local youth), and the local newspaper begins attacking staid Bill Huckerby, the principal of Binawarra High School, Ms Vrouwendijk's plans - whatever their aim - seem to have an unstoppable momentum. Then Estella goes missing.
Former SAS captain and Vietnam veteran Geoffrey Shawcross sets off on a pursuit that takes him across the world to France and then to the Castle of Heavenly Bliss in the Dutch province of Zeeland. Mystery and thrills go hand in hand as Geoff searches for the girl he has grown to love. He discovers Gerda Vrouwendijk's deadly purpose and fears he may be too late.
The SIXTIES SERIES will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories. The cultural revolution of the 1960s (1960-1975) and the Second Vatican Council are the social, cultural, and political background. The author, who lived through the turmoil of those times, recreates its atmosphere. The stories show how the books' different characters, with their different ambitions, reacted to and adjusted to sometimes overwhelming change. The themes of neo-paganism and Gnosticism run through the stories.
Book 1 Times of Distress
Book 2 In this Vale of Tears
Book 3 Counterculture Dreams
Book 4 The Counterculture Goddess
Book 5 Love in the Counterculture
Book 6 Dreams to Nightmare (2027)
Book 7 The Castle of Heavenly Bliss
Book 8 A Sense of Loss due 2026
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