Stark and forbidding, Jamaica Inn stands alone on bleak Bodmin Moor, its very walls tainted with corruption. Young Mary Yellan soon learns of her uncle Joss Merlyn's strange trade here - but does he deal in blacker secrets still?
As her suspicions and her terror increase, she looks in vain for help from the fearful Cornish people. Only in the Vicar of Altarnun does she find a friend - and in the oddly likeable horse-thief they call the worst Merlyn of them all . . .
And, as the drama in this famous gothic masterpiece heightens, Mary must choose which to trust.