GALLOWS HILL

The newly orphaned owner of Australia’s Gallows Hill Winery discovers that she’s inherited a lot more than a business—and that the ownership works both ways.

As far as anyone can tell, Hugh and Maria Hull died of heart attacks the same night. Margot Hull certainly can’t add any details: Brought up by Hugh’s mother, she hasn’t seen her parents since she was a small child. The news that she’s their sole legatee is a decidedly mixed blessing. She’s never understood why they sent her away so long ago. She doesn’t know anything about running the business that’s suddenly dropped in her lap. She can’t even drink wine, which makes her sick despite her tolerance for all sorts of other spirits. Hardly has Margot bedded down at her late parents’ house with the help of Kant, the winery’s business manager, when eerie portents begin. She hears nocturnal cries and moans. She finds six nooses strung up outside the house, and Kant informs her that similar nooses have regularly appeared throughout the 30 years he’s worked there. An ancient videotape her parents made for her looks more creepy than reassuring. And her fear of underground spaces is severely tested. Clearly the place is haunted, with every indication that no one who settles on Gallows Hill, which fully deserves its name, can ever leave. As the 250th anniversary of the disappearance of Ezra Hull, the winery’s original owner, along with his wife and their four children, approaches, Coates, dispensing with any opening pretense of normalcy, ratchets up the ghostly manifestations till you can’t imagine there are any more stops to pull out—though of course there are.

Catnip for fans of things that go bump in the night, and eventually the day.