Susan Hill is a terrific writer, whose title The Woman In Black is a great example of a traditional gothic novel, with a mysterious spectre haunting a town plagued by missing and murdered children.
Just the kind of book to read on a dark night on the couch, the cat on your lap jolting upright at a noise!
It's right behind you!
The Woman In Black was turned into the second longest-running play in the history of the West End, and a film starring Daniel Radcliffe. She has written detective series and fiction, and I turn to her for a quality scare, but with The Mist In The Mirror I rolled my eyes and laughed so much my husband thought it was a comedy.
The elements were there, but to no effect this time.
A young gentleman meets Sir James Monmouth at his London club one dark rainy night. They get to talking about ghosts, as you do, and Monmouth gives the man his notebook, filled with a strange tale Monmouth says he himself lived. After travelling the world, Sir James arrived in foggy London deciding to write a book about Conrad Vane, an explorer he had become obsessed with. Everyone who knows the dark history of Vane warns him off - for he was depraved and into occult matters - and wherever Monmouth goes he is followed by a small boy, hard to see, often crying in the dark. He pursues his quest to an English college and then to the remote Monmouth family castle in the northern hills, where he discovers how his family history is entwined with Conrad Vane.
Written in the Victorian style, this has ample mood, dark foggy nights, mysterious sounds, visions or dreams attacking at all hours - but it was corny and lacking in any suspense. Actually, pretty dull. The one twist I thought was obvious and might save it at the last moment, didn't happen. Besides following Monmouth around England, nothing really happens. Even the arrival of his new friend Lady Quincebridge and his recouperation at her home provide as much excitement as a weekend rest.
If you like wandering dark shrouded streets, foggy moors, and candle-lit corridors, this has atmosphere in spades, but if you want terror arising from beyond the grave, this won't satisfy you.
This was a non-event for me.
My other reviews for Susan Hill:
1992 / Tradeback / 185 pages
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