A Maggot

In the spring of 1736 four men and one woman all traveling under assumed names are crossing the Devonshire countryside en route to a mysterious rendezvous. Before their journey ends one of them will be hanged one will vanish and the others will face a murder trial. Out of the truths and lies that envelop these events John Fowles has created a novel that is at once a tale of erotic obsession an exploration of the conflict between reason and superstition an astonishing act of literary legerdemain and the story of the birth of a new faith.