Brotherly Love & Other Tales of Faith and Knowledge — David Case

For a brother, already alarmed at the disappearance of his sister, there can be nothing more disturbing than finding evidence she may not have been the only victim of the man who lives at Lavendar Hall. When the local police seem to take no interest in the matter, a loving brother cannot let the investigation lapse. He must find out the truth, whatever the cost...

The young girl is running away from an abusive father. She leaves the road when she catches sight of a police car only to get caught in an old bear trap in the forest. But instead of release, her screams bring someone with rape on his mind. The sheriff is not impressed by the girl's description of her attacker nor her later hysteria at the clinic when she claims the face at her window was that of her attacker. But when another girl is reported missing and a third has a narrow excape, the sheriff begins to wonder whether his quiet litttle town is hiding a terrible secret.

In these most Gothic of tales, David Case explores the boundary line between fact and fantasy. Then he goes on to new territory where themes of knowledge and understanding are explored in settings as varied as the Age of Reason in Europe and a strange planet where a prospector may have stumbled onto the find of the century.