The Books Behind the Summer's Best Movies

In The Little Stranger, out August 31, an English country doctor makes regular visits, shortly after World War II, to a decrepit mansion populated only by an aging doyenne (played by Charlotte Rampling), her two children and, perhaps, another mysterious presence. The movie is billed as a supernatural horror film that dwells on the mansion's dark past, and Waters' source novel reveals plenty of research into poltergeists and other spooky creeps. But Waters is such a masterful writer about Victorian manners and family secrets that it's not till halfway through the novel that she's given you the creeps for real. She holds your attention with a perfectly controlled, slow-motion depiction of the house's decline, and the place is so eerie and compelling that it's practically a character in itself.