Branwell Bronte's Tale, by Chris Firth, published by Electraglade Press at £8.99

IT is September 1848. Two men set out by coach to visit an ailing acquaintance in the unsalubrious village of Haworth, a place of open middens and noxious vapours with homes huddling about the church where old man Bronte is pastor.

As it is Friday afternoon, there'll be no coach from Keighley up to the village, says diminutive Big Barry Robb, erstwhile London felon and barman of the Pack Horse Inn. The rain has stopped pelting, so the two men decide to stride the three or four miles to the home of their haunted friend Patrick 'Madness' Bronte.

One of the two men, Bradford barber George MacCraw, is convinced that Branwell is the author of an extraordinary story that we know as Wuthering Heights.

They meet the black sheep of the Bronte family in the Black Bull. Branwell enters like a wraith and after a few hot brandies tells them he will soon be dead. But before he follows his mother to the grave he asks MacCraw to save some of his writings - from the vengeful hand of his sister Charlotte.

"Just a few scraps of manuscripts and rags of old journals that I don't want her to set her hand upon. She'll do away with me, breath by breath, word by word. She'll scratch me out by the inkblot," he says.

Irrespective of whether you accept anecdotal evidence supporting Chris Firth's belief that Branwell invented the character of Heathcliff, not his sister Emily, any decently-written mystery thriller involving that strange family in the parsonage on the hill is likely to prove compulsive reading - especially on a cold winter's day at the darkest end of the year.

In Firth's novel Branwell Bronte's Tale, George MacCraw makes the claim which, in real life, was made by schoolmaster William Oakenshaw in two Halifax newspapers. Chris Firth subsequently supplied material to two linquistic experts to compare Branwell Bronte's style of writing and the style of two editions of Wuthering Heights - the original 1847 version and the amended version that was edited by Charlotte Bronte.

The familiar story of Branwell the waster addicted to opiates and drink, the shame of the upwardly aspiring Bronte family, is reversed in Firth's novel. Branwell is the victim, not the culprit.

Though why Charlotte would destroy her brother's manuscripts is not explored. MacCraw recalls Branwell's better days as a painter in Bradford when he entertained his friends with his writings which he produced from inside his hat, like a conjurer.

MacCraw himself is pursued by the thuggish Robb who wants Branwell manuscripts, especially his version of Wuthering Heights. MacCraw believes larger and darker forces, perhaps even demonic forces, are at work, especially after he is beaten up and his barber's shop is ransacked.

The revenge he plots is elaborate, slightly far-fetched, but fully in keeping with the Burke and Hare gothic horror element threading the last 60 pages of this largely enjoyable tale.

I was hoping for stories about encounters with the rest of the Bronte family, but the pastor and his daughters remain in the background. Instead MacCraw's wife Caroline, a less interesting character, provides the romance - until her death in suspicious circumstances in Bradford.

Branwell Bronte's Barber's Tale was published ten years ago. This edition is in larger type, hence the 364 pages.