Beneath the Stone


Fiction - Thriller - General
Kindle Edition
Reviewed on 09/16/2014
Buy on Amazon

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Free Book Program, which is open to all readers and is completely free. The author will provide you with a free copy of their book in exchange for an honest review. You and the author will discuss what sites you will post your review to and what kind of copy of the book you would like to receive (eBook, PDF, Word, paperback, etc.). To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Review Exchange Program, which is open to all authors and is completely free. Simply put, you agree to provide an honest review an author's book in exchange for the author doing the same for you. What sites your reviews are posted on (B&N, Amazon, etc.) and whether you send digital (eBook, PDF, Word, etc.) or hard copies of your books to each other for review is up to you. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email, and be sure to describe your book or include a link to your Readers' Favorite review page or Amazon page.

This author participates in the Readers' Favorite Book Donation Program, which was created to help nonprofit and charitable organizations (schools, libraries, convalescent homes, soldier donation programs, etc.) by providing them with free books and to help authors garner more exposure for their work. This author is willing to donate free copies of their book in exchange for reviews (if circumstances allow) and the knowledge that their book is being read and enjoyed. To begin, click the purple email icon to send this author a private email. Be sure to tell the author who you are, what organization you are with, how many books you need, how they will be used, and the number of reviews, if any, you would be able to provide.

Author Biography

Until her retirement, Margaret M. Ford was the managing director of a UK based manufacturing company. She now lives permanently in Australia with her husband and family. She enjoys writing in the mystery, suspense and thriller genre. For further information on her books, please visit her website.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Patricia Reding for Readers' Favorite

Beneath the Stone, by Margaret M. Ford, opens with a scene from WWII, when the Nazis, now in their final days of power, seek to do their last damage and perhaps to hide a few treasures along the way. Three such men hold local villagers hostage in a small Italian town. They demand to know who stole something from them. Meanwhile, two men watch on. One, recognizing his son amongst the Nazis victims and hoping to lead the soldiers astray so as to save his son, interrupts. After feigning to question the boy, he tells the soldiers he knows where the item is. Getting one of the soldiers to identify himself as Rannulf Nagel, the man leads Rannulf and his compatriots away, believing the Allied Powers, not far behind, will arrive soon to help the villagers. Years later, that man’s grandson, David Montefort, travels with his mother and sister to England, following the death of David’s father, to move into the childhood home of his mother, Jaida Montefort. There, David meets his intriguing grandmother, the family matriarch, and learns the truth about his grandfather, the man who led the Nazis astray all those years ago. What were they looking for? Who took it? Where is it now? And where is he now?

Readers of Beneath the Stone will find a story they do not want to put down and, when they do, they will look forward to picking it up again. They will seek to discover the solution to the mystery Margaret M. Ford created. In timely fashion, they will learn who was the boy the Nazis questioned and they will search, along with David who grows into a young man as the story progresses, for the former SS officer and war criminal, Rannulf Nagel. The family dynamics are believable and the idiosyncrasies of its individual members (most particularly Alma, who is a bit simple-minded) are well drawn and realistic. Readers will turn the pages more quickly as time goes on, finding a growing desire to learn the fate of David’s grandfather and perhaps, in due course, to find justice served to a former Nazi.

John Morrow

I have already had the pleasure of reading Margaret Ford’s “Lament for the Dead” and enjoyed it immensely. Now she has cemented my admiration of her work with this novel. Her writing skills once again immerse you easily and quickly into her story and her characters’ strengths and flaws make for fine reading.

Robert Gregory J.P.

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel from start to finish and I would recommend it to others who enjoy thriller novels.