The Woman in Black
The Woman in Black
Author: Susan Hill
Desc: What real reader does not yearn somewhere in the recesses of his or her heart for a really literate first-class thriller--one that chills the body but warms the soul with plot perception and language at once astute and vivid? In other words a ghost story written by Jane Austen? Alas we cannot give you Austen but Susan Hill's remarkable Woman In Black comes as close as our era can provide. Set on the obligatory English moor on an isolated causeway the story has as its hero Arthur Kipps an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north from London to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the deserted nursery the eerie sound of a pony and trap a child's scream in the fog and most dreadfully--and for Kipps most tragically--The Woman In Black. The Woman In Black is both a brilliant exercise in atmosphere and controlled horror and a delicious spine-tingler--proof positive that this neglected genre the ghost story isn't dead after all.