The House on Widows Hill (An Ishmael Jones Mystery)

by Simon R. Green

Ishmael Jones investigates a haunted house . . . but is haunted by his own past in the latest of this quirky paranormal mystery series.

"That house is a bad place. Bad things happen there . . ."

Set high on top of Widows Hill, Harrow House has remained empty for years. Now, on behalf of an anonymous prospective buyer, Ishmael and Penny are spending a night there in order to investigate the rumours of strange lights, mysterious voices, unexplained disappearances, and establish whether the house is really haunted.

What really happened at Harrow House all those years ago? Joined by a celebrity psychic, a professional ghost-hunter, a local historian and a newspaper reporter, it becomes clear that each member of 'Team Ghost' has their own pet theory as to the cause of the alleged haunting. But when one of the group suddenly drops dead with no obvious cause, Ishmael realizes that if he can find out how and why the victim died, he will have the key to solving the mystery.

• ISBN10: 0727890301
• ISBN13: 9780727890306
• Publish Date: 31 May 2020
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
• Imprint: Severn House
• Edition: Main
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 192
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

The House on Widows Hill is the 9th book in the Ishmael Jones series by Simon R. Green. Released 2nd July 2020 by Severn House, it's 192 pages and available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

These books, about a generally altruistic alien trapped on earth since 1963, are genre crossing speculative fiction at its absolute best. This one is a worthy addition to the series and combines an array of literal locked door mystery, historical noir, urban fantasy, humor, and supernatural governmental espionage.

The insanely prolific author is well known to urban fantasy fans for his 200 works over 12(+) series including The Nightside. Despite being the 9th book in the series, it works very well as a standalone and readers new to the series won't have any trouble keeping up with the action. One thing that didn't appeal to me as much with this book as the previous works in the series was that this one literally takes place in the rooms of one house, and the action is *entirely* dialogue driven. Yes, it's a murder mystery with a spooky house and a "locked room" cast of suspects, but the pacing is weirdly off. It's still eminently readable, but (for me) wasn't quite up to the level of the others. The denouement was rapid, completely deus ex machina, and made me roll my eyes, but it did provide some interesting backstory for the titular character.

Very entertaining and a quick and humorous read. The author has a definite gift with repartee and I found myself smiling often whilst reading. This series will likely appeal to fans of Charles Stross' Laundry Files, Jasper Fforde, and similar.

Four stars. Well worth a look.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes