The Five Knots

"The Five Knots" by Fred M. White is a suspenseful novel that begins with Beatrice Galloway, niece to the rich and shady ship-owner Samuel Flower, facing a strange and frightening event at Maldon Grange. After seeing a mysterious hand trying to open the conservatory door, a sense of danger and hidden pasts starts to build around her uncle and his dealings. The story introduces Wilfrid Mercer, a doctor who gets pulled into the family's problems, as the mystery gets deeper, with hints of foreign threats and old secrets tied to Flower's shipping business. The novel weaves a web of relationships and suspense, as hidden ambitions and dark forces clash.

Fred Merrick White (1859–1935) wrote a number of novels and short stories under the name "Fred M. White" including the six "Doom of London" science-fiction stories, in which various catastrophes beset London. These include The Four Days' Night (1903), in which London is beset by a massive killer smog; The Dust of Death (1903), in which diphtheria infects the city, spreading from refuse tips and sewers; and The Four White Days (1903), in which a sudden and deep winter paralyses the city under snow and ice. These six stories all first appeared in Pearson's Magazine, and were illustrated by Warwick Goble. He was also a pioneer of the spy story, and in 2003, his series The Romance of the Secret Service Fund was edited by Douglas G. Greene and published by Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.