Father Schedoni is enlisted by the imperious Marchesa di Vivaldi to prevent her son from marrying the beautiful Ellena. Schedoni has no scruples in kidnapping Ellena and in undertaking whatever villainy will further his own ends. His menacing presence dominates a gripping tale of love and
betrayal, abduction and assassination, and incarceration in the dreadful dungeons of the Inquisition. Uncertainty and doubt lie everywhere, in Radcliffe’s last and most unnerving novel.