Checkmate

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"The match is over, and you may rise now and say Checkmate."
Walter Longcluse is a mysterious figure, a drifter and self-made man whose travels throughout France, Austria, and England resulted in a large personal fortune. Being personable, he is quickly accepted into the Arden family, former aristocrats whose once ascendant star has lately waned with unpaid debts and the shadow of a murder. As Longcluse courts Alice Arden, brother Richard becomes fast friends with Longcluse. A visit to a gambling club one night brings them face to face with Monsieur Lebas, a brute who seems to recognize Longcluse but is almost immediately found murdered. The story unfolds, to thrilling conclusion, with a surprising plot twist right at the end.
Checkmate is a chillingly atmospheric tale of betrayal as only Le Fanu could create.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic horror. Born in Dublin, Le Fanu was raised in a literary family. His mother, a biographer, and his father, a clergyman, encouraged his intellectual development from a young age. He began writing poetry at fifteen and went on to excel at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied law and served as Auditor of the College Historical Society. In 1838, shortly before he was called to the bar, he began contributing ghost stories to Dublin University Magazine, of which he later became editor and proprietor. He embarked on a career as a writer and journalist, using his role at the magazine as a means of publishing his own fictional work. Le Fanu made a name for himself as a pioneer of mystery and Gothic horror with such novels as The House by the Churchyard (1863) and Uncle Silas (1864). Carmilla (1872), a novella, is considered an early work of vampire fiction and an important influence for Bram Stoker¿s Dracula (1897).