Wilkie Collins is a Victorian sensation novelist that I found by chance because of a recommendation from my always wonderful paperback book club. After being out of print for some time, the club had a copy of The Woman in White, one of the more famous of Collins’s work. I snatched it up and enjoyed it so much I picked up a copy of The Haunted Hotel, a well-developed novella of his, plus several others of his work as I can find them.
The Haunted Hotel is a supernatural detective story. The Countess thinks she is being haunted after her husband, Lord Montbarry, dies unexpectedly while they are on their Venice honeymoon. Their marriage was unexpected, as the Lord dropped his fiancée, Agnes, to marry the unknown Countess. Their marriage is one plagued by gossip since the Countess is in constant attendance by her brother, Baron Rivar, who is rumored to not actually be her brother. After the Lord dies, Agnes and the Montbarry family end up in the same place where Lord Montbarry died, and those of his family who stay in his room are haunted by various dreams, visions, and smells. Agnes and Henry (the Lord’s cousin, currently in love with Agnes) are determined to find out the truth behind the supernatural events, and in doing so, end up solving a mystery.
The Haunted Hotel is a nice little supernatural mystery. It’s nowhere as good as The Woman in White, but it’s a nice piece of work from a very good Victorian writer. The plot has a few twists and turns, and the prose is descriptive. The supernatural occurrences are not anything particularly new, but still are spooky enough to give you a few old fashioned Victorian chills.
If you like Victorian ghost stories or mysteries, I’d recommend the longer The Woman in White from Wilkie Collins, but if you are short on time and what to get a glimpse at his style, The Haunted Hotel won’t steer you wrong.
Rating: 4 Purrs
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment