First published in 1945 with this Bantam paperback appearing in 1951, Dorothy Macardle’s The Unforeseen deals with a woman who installs herself in a quiet Irish cottage to work on a book about birds, but begins having a series of hallucinations. The main character Virgilia at first thinks they’re manifestations of second sight, especially since more than a few of her visions come true. But they’re such minor predictions that it’s easy for her—after seeing a psychiatrist friend who offers rational explanations—to dismiss them as imaginings brought on by fatigue and stress. But the doctor’s psychic researcher son believes the visions are supernatural, and covets Virgilia as a prospective case study. Things get darker when the visions at the story’s center go from basically harmless to darkly frightening, but are they actually real? We won’t tell. The Unforeseen is pretty entertaining, all in all, especially considering we picked it solely because of the cover art by H.E. Bischoff. However, pulp fans may find the book slow, as it owes more to du Maurier than to any crime or adventure writers.
