{"id":724,"date":"2018-12-02T09:38:03","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T09:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=724"},"modified":"2018-12-02T09:38:03","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T09:38:03","slug":"review-of-the-lost-village-by-neil-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hebulstrode.co.uk\/?p=724","title":{"rendered":"Review of The Lost Village by Neil Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In this book, Neil Spring succeeds in creating moments of genuine horror that will make the reader flinch, but there were occasions, I\u2019m afraid, when I flinched in horror for very different reasons altogether. It is a book that purports to have at its heart a supernatural mystery, specifically the haunting of the abandoned village of Imber, so I must make it clear that I have no problem with suspending disbelief in such phenomena for a story of this nature, but there were elements of this novel that simply stretched credulity beyond breaking point. From his description of Imber, for example, gripped by frost and covered in snow, you would think that he had set this tale in the middle of a harsh English winter, but the action unfolds at the end of October. Such weather at this time of year is atypical even for the lofty heights of the Cairngorm Mountains, let alone for Salisbury Plain. He even refers to it being \u2018winter\u2019 at one point, even though it is spelt out that the action is taking place around Halloween. Earlier in the story he describes the art deco fixtures of a cinema as being \u2018old\u2019, even though the character making this observation is reflecting on their \u2018oldness\u2019 in 1932, when Art Deco was the style of the moment. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

With respect to this self-same cinema, he makes mention of his characters hearing the wind whistling around outside whilst they are stood in its auditorium. Can anyone hear the wind when standing in the auditorium unless it should be issuing from the cinema\u2019s speakers? No. To think that this could be the case is \u2018a big ask\u2019 on the part of the author, who places this anachronistic \u2018big ask\u2019 phrase into the mouth of his twenty-something heroine in the autumn of 1932. I can recall the jarring effect of hearing someone speak this phrase for the first time a few years ago, and concluded that it must have been a recent Transatlantic borrowing smuggled into English to displace the more restrained native \u2018it\u2019s a bit much\u2019. Other Americanisms cropped up in the prose of this Welsh writer, slipped into the speech of his 1930s English characters, presumably to appeal to a contemporary American readership. The result left his prose bobbing about in the turbulent and choppy waters of the mid-Atlantic, but appearing far more artificial than the once well-known drawl of Masterchef<\/em> and Through the Keyhole<\/em> presenter Lloyd Grossman. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I found that I warmed neither to his protagonist \u2013 Sarah Grey, anachronistically placing career before family \u2013 and her erstwhile employer\/foil, the ghost hunter Harry Price, who came across as some sort of American gumshoe detective. On the plus side, the story did deliver an interesting twist at the end, but the central premise of the book simply didn\u2019t ring true to me, as the author seemed to be projecting contemporary social norms regarding inheritance law into the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The gentry could, and would, pass on the bulk of their estate to their eldest son, even if he did have older sisters; the existence of such sisters would not hinder this practice, and thus the central motivation for the frankly deranged and utterly unbelievable actions of the novel\u2019s antagonist are removed at a stroke. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Having said all of this, I might be seeming a little harsh, but my remarks and quibbles are intended to highlight how this could have been a better book. Many readers will find it to their taste and like it just as it is, but for me, it could have benefited from the attentions of a more competent copy editor, and a sharper and more-focused plot. It read more like a storyboard for a Hollywood movie than a novel, and I can imagine it making for a diverting enough 90 minutes or so on \u2018film\u2019. Don\u2019t be surprised if reading this book summons up the unnerving spectres of Scooby and Shaggy: \u2018If it weren\u2019t for those pesky kids!’<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ghost Hunter<\/em> by Neil Spring may be purchased here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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