Ideally spooky Halloween reading...
A chilling ghost story by the author of The Woman in Black.
One murky November evening after a satisfying meal in their Fleet Street lodgings, a conversation between four medical students takes a curious turn and Hugh is initiated into a dark secret. In the cellar of their narrow lodgings in Printer's Devil Court and a little used mortuary in a subterranean annex of the hospital, they have begun to interfere with death itself, in shadowy experiments beyond the realms of medical ethics. They call on Hugh to witness an event both extraordinary and terrifying.
Years later, Hugh has occasion to return to his student digs and the familiar surroundings resurrect peculiar and unpleasant memories of these unnatural events, the true horror of which only slowly becomes apparent.
This is the first Susan Hill story I have read, and I must say I was disappointed. The tale starts off well with Victorian doctors conducting experiments in the hope of successfully resurrecting a cadaver. The premise, although not original, promises a gripping ghost story in the Victorian Gothic tradition. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver on that promise. Any ghost story worth penning needs a chilling twist, the kind that raises the hairs on the back of your neck, but the climax to this story is disappointing. I have been led to believe that Susan Hill deserves the hype surrounding her fiction, so I'm willing to give her another chance. Please tell me which of her ghost stories I should read. The Woman in Black, perhaps? I enjoyed the film released by Hammer in 2012.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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1 January, 2016:
Finished reading
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1 January, 2016:
Reviewed