Frederick E Smith

The Grotto of Tiberius Frederick E Smith

The Mediterranean island that Michael Forbes is considering for his father's tourist agency looks peaceful enough, and even the evil tales of the Grotto of Tiberius, haunted by a Roman tragedy, seem just fanciful peasant superstition and not sufficient to bring in the tourist trade. However, when Michael, a stubborn young Yorkshireman, falls in love with the bright-haired Cristina, he begins to recognize the force of island feuds and superstitions. The local magnate, Sabastian, has sworn to marry Cristina -- even if it means sending a man to certain death in the Grotto of Tiberius...

Frederick E. Smith (1919-2012) joined the R. A. F. in 1939 as a wireless operator/air gunner and commenced service in early 1940, serving in Britain, Africa and finally the Far East. At the end of the war he married and worked for several years in South Africa before returning to England to fulfill his life-long ambition to write. Two years later, his first play was produced and his first novel published. Since then, he wrote over forty novels, about eighty short stories and two plays. Two novels, 633 Squadron and The Devil Doll, were made into films and one, A Killing for the Hawks, won the Mark Twain Literary Award.