Daphne Du Maurier

"While working as the companion to a rich American woman vacationing on the French Riviera, the narrator becomes acquainted with a wealthy Englishman, Maximilian (Maxim) de Winter, a reasonably young widower. After a fortnight of courtship, she agrees to marry him, and after the marriage accompanies him to his mansion, the beautiful West Country estate Manderley. Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, was profoundly devoted to the first Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca....

After the death of her mother, Mary Yellan crosses the windswept Cornish moors to Jamaica Inn, the home of her Aunt Patience. There she finds Patience a changed woman, downtrodden by her domineering, vicious husband Joss Merlyn. The inn is a front for a lawless gang of criminals, and Mary is unwillingly dragged into their dangerous world of smuggling and murder. Before long she will be forced to cross her own moral line to save herself.