The breakthrough novel from one of Australia's finest writers - a gripping story of ghosts, betrayal and murder in Victorian England
John Harwood grew up in Hobart and studied literature and philosophy at the universities of Tasmania and Cambridge. He has published biography, political journalism, satire and poetry. He is the author of The Ghost Writer.
Set in Victorian England, Harwood's spellbinding second novel (after The Ghost Writer) pays homage to such 19th-century suspense masters as Wilkie Collins and Sheridan LeFanu. When orphaned gentlewoman Constance Langton inherits Wraxford Hall, a derelict mansion on the Suffolk coast, from an aunt she has never met, the lawyer handling the conveyance warns her to sell the hall unseen. When he sends her a bundle of documents concerning the home's history of death, madness and occult apparitions, Constance feels a deep affinity for Nell Wraxford, who disappeared from the hall with her infant daughter years earlier under suspicion of murdering her enigmatic husband, Magnus. Hoping to clear Nell's name, Constance visits the hall with a group of psychic researchers. Harwood invokes the hoariest clichEs of supernatural suspense, from stormy nights to haunted houses, and effortlessly makes them his own. The novel's voice, too, is superbly crafted, accurate for the period but never self-consciously antique. (Feb.) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
A lichen-laden manse in the foggy English countryside, rumors of mysterious dis-appearances, generations of damsels in distress, long-lost diaries revealing dangerous secrets-these elements of a first-class Victorian thriller are in Harwood's sophomore offering (after The Ghost Writer, the 2004 International Horror Guild Award winner for best first novel). Beginning with Constance Langton's narrative in 1889, Harwood reveals his creepy tale via the testimony of various characters whose veracity could be doubted. The plot is set in motion when Constance, who's been dabbling with psychics in a desperate attempt to ease her mother's anguish over the death of Constance's sister, inherits Wraxford Hall, a 20-year-old diary, and an admonition to burn the haunted mansion to the ground. But Constance, one of those plucky Victorian heroines readers love, is mesmerized by the diary's tale of murders, kidnappings, and strange scientific experiments that took place at the hall; she determines, despite personal risk, to unravel the mysteries. Harwood, who has been compared to Wilkie Collins, has crafted a fast-paced ghost story with an old-fashioned touch. Recommended for all public libraries.-Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.
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