The Sun Down Motel, by Simone St. James

9780440000174
Berkley, 2020
327 pp

hardcover


One of the authors blurbed on the back cover of this book says that The Sun Down Motel is "Deliciously creepy. A chilling blend of mystery and ghost story that will thrill fans of both." That would soooo be me:  I love both a good mystery and a good ghost story, so I picked up a copy in eager anticipation. 

The story is told from two different points of view and from two different timelines; the common ground between both is the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York.   In 2017 Carly Kirk has made her way here to find out anything she can about her missing aunt Vivian, who had just vanished back in 1982.  Carly never knew her, but she'd been "obsessed" with what had happened to her as long as she could remember.  Aunt Vivian was never spoken of at home; there were no photos of her anywhere, and the only thing her mother ever said about Vivian was that "Vivian is dead."  For Carly it was unfair that her aunt had been

"forgotten, reduced to a few pieces of newsprint and nothing else. It wasn't fair that Mom had died and taken her memories and her grief with her. It wasn't fair that Viv didn't matter to anyone but me."

Vivian had arrived in Fell in 1982. She hadn't planned on landing there, but  once she'd arrived she picked up a job as night clerk as the Sun Down Motel.  It wasn't long until she started having strange experiences including the strong smell of someone smoking (with no one else there but her), weird phone calls, footsteps and a presence she felt, lights going off and on, doors opening, and a woman who "wasn't real."   In  2017, when  Carly arrived in Fell, the same night clerk job at the Sun Down Motel was coincidentally (ahem)  available, and she took it.   While she investigates what may have happened to  her missing aunt, she comes across a series of past unsolved murders that occurred prior to her aunt's disappearance; she also begins to experience the same strange phenomena at the Sun Down.  What she didn't know was that Vivian had also become interested in these unsolved crimes.  The novel follows both Vivian and Carly as they explore these crimes in their own way across time.    Much has changed in the meantime, including the advent of the Internet, "murderinos" who share an obsession with and information about crimes past and present, cell phones, etc.,  but two things remain the same: the potential for danger as each woman gets closer to answers in her search, and the weird, inexplicable happenings at the Sun Down Motel.


The Sun Down Motel begins with a number of questions that will eventually be answered when all is said and done, and its first chapter drew me in quickly setting up the strangeness to come, especially at the end when Viv writes the following in her notebook:

"The ghosts are awake tonight. They're restless. I think this will be over soon."

I'm thinking at this point that this was going to be good.   And then something happened: right at about page 102  somehow I figured it out.  I knew who was behind it all and I knew how this novel was going to end including the twisty bit towards the end.   I wrote down the name on an index card as well as a prediction, stuck it in the book and went on to finish reading it, hoping I'd be wrong. I wasn't -- on either count.  Oh, what a disappointment!  Obviously there were plot points that I couldn't know by page 102, but somehow I'd pegged it nonetheless in terms of the weirdness at the Sun Down, the solution to the crimes, and a big part of the twisty ending; for me the suspense just wasn't there.   What was said (referring to the back-cover blurb again) to be  a novel that "takes danger and fear to a new level" came off like a beach read.  So there goes the promise of being  "thrilled."    What about  "deliciously creepy?" one might ask.   Well, that didn't quite pan out as well as hoped either.  Ghostly/supernatural stories from across the world and across time happen to be a large portion of my reading bread and butter, and the one in this book I found sort of lackluster and  not really very frightening at all, landing more on the side of  supernatural effects that you might find on tv or in a film.  To be fair, I will say that for the most part some of these scenes were written so vividly that I could actually see some of them in my head as they were happening, but the hackles on the neck just weren't there -- another disappointment. 

The truth is that  most readers loved this book and have given it stellar ratings as well as an abundance of uber-enthusiastic reviews,  so once again,  I find myself swimming against the tide of popular opinion; once again I am the little red fish going the other way.  Sometimes I'm just not the right audience for certain books; this one falls into that category.  It happens to everyone.

'tis the season, part two: He Arrived at Dusk, by R.C. Ashby.

9781939140449
Valancourt Books, 2013
originally published 1933
218 pp

paperback

Another book I pulled off the shelf for October reading, He Arrived at Dusk gave me such immense pleasure that I actually applauded at the end.  I do that sometimes (little claps and a "bravo" here and there that no one but myself can hear) when I like a novel as much as I enjoyed this one.  It really is the perfect crime read for the Halloween season, as the author blends mystery and more than a hint of the supernatural, and does it in a rather ingenious fashion.  And what is there not to love about the cover art?

For a short blurb about the author, Ruby Constance Ashby (Ferguson), you can click on through to Valancourt's website. 

As is revealed at the outset,

"The story as here presented is in three parts; three stories in one, three points of view; in fact, murder through the eyes of three men of widely differing mentality and outlook."

The first of these is Mertoun's account, which begins as he is in his club.  Something he's heard has seriously distressed him, and he reveals to another gentleman that he is "haunted."  That man, a certain Mr. Ahrman, has him relate what's happened to him over the previous three weeks; Mertoun agrees, in the hope that Ahrman will believe what will turn out to be a rather bizarre story.    It seems that Mertoun had been engaged by a certain Colonel Barr  to "value the contents" of his remote house in the Northumberland moors, The Broch, which derived its name from a nearby ancient ruin of a tower said to be haunted.   On entering the house to begin his work he immediately experiences a "hideous feeling,"  a "coldness" that hit him like "an electric shock from an unearthly battery."  After waiting some time, he meets Charlie Barr, who reveals to him that his uncle is ill, confined to his room, and is under the charge of a nurse, and that nobody is allowed to see him, not even his nephew.   The next day he also learns that the house has its own resident poltergeist.  When he finally meets the nurse, Miss Goff, she offers him another job, to arrange and catalogue the books in the Colonel's library, a task which should take Mertoun about two weeks.   It is during that time that Charlie tells him the story of an ancient Roman soldier whose ghost haunts the area around the Broch.  The legend is well known by the locals of the nearby village, who refuse to go anywhere near it, except for a shepherd who has, it seems, taken his flock to the tower ruins.    It is also during this time that he begins to experience some strange experiences in the house, which culminate in a rather bizarre seance (!) held there at the behest of a local doctor who wishes to contact his wife; it is shortly after this event that a seemingly-impossible, ghostly murder occurs.  However, that's not the only shock that awaits the inhabitants of the house.

RC Ashby, from Persephone Books

As Mark Valentine notes in his introduction, He Arrived at Dusk  is a "chilling story of apparitions, uncanny incidents, and dark legends... " and clearly the author has laid the foundations for such a tale  in the way she evokes the atmosphere that permeates this entire story.  The house at the edge of Northern Sea, the moors that could swallow an unsuspecting person,  the periodic sweeping of the lighthouse beam across the landscape, and the superstition surrounding the old tower itself all combine to create the perfect backdrop for what takes place here.  Add to that Mertoun's own sense of something "hideous" on entering the house for the first time and his recounting of his own strange experiences there, the mysterious Nurse Goff, and the scene is more than set for the strangeness that follows in the next two accounts.   However, there is also a seriously good mystery at the heart of it all, and as a keen reader of these old novels, for me the solution was almost as satisfying as the journey. 

For devotees of these older books, or for people looking for something a wee bit different than your standard British mystery, you really can't do much better.  He Arrived at Dusk is one of those hidden gems I live to discover, and my serious thanks go to Valancourt for bringing it back into print. 

'tis the season, part one: A House of Ghosts, by W.C. Ryan

9781948924719
Arcade Publishing, first North American edition, 2019
384 pp

hardcover

October reading is generally given over to the strange and the supernatural, so when I heard about A House of Ghosts, I picked it up and on the list it went. 

It's winter, 1917, and a group of people are gathering at Blackwater Abbey at the time of the winter solstice.   The house is on the "remote" Blackwater Island off the coast of Devon, and the guests  of the owners, the Highmounts, will be there to try to contact the dead, hopefully their sons who died during the war.    Two mediums will be in attendance, and the house is the perfect location for doing so, since it has a "reputation" for its ghostly inhabitants, "a mixed group, from several different centuries." Kate Cartwright is more than aware of their existence; she not only seems to have clairvoyant abilities, but has also actually seen these ghosts.  Kate had prevously been invited to Blackwater Abbey along with her parents but had declined;  her plans change however when she is given an assignment by the Intelligence Service -- she is to make her way to the island in the company of her ex-fiancé Captain Rolleston Miller-White, who in turn will be attended by his valet, an undercover Intelligence officer by the name of Donovan.  It will be Donovan's job there to investigate the leak of some plans that had ended up in the hands of the Germans and to discover exactly whoever it was that had passed the classified information.  Since the house is located on an island, the only way to and from there is by their hosts' boat,  making it even more of a closed-circle type mystery; a storm soon traps everyone on the island, but who among them is it? 

I ask you, how could anyone  not enjoy a novel with a  remote island setting, a storm that makes it impossible for anyone to leave, an old house where spirits roam freely, a mystery involving spies,  a murder, and best of all the promise of a seance to bring forth even more spirits (I am HUGE fangirl of novels where there is a seance or two)?  These are all elements that tick my mystery/supernatural-reading buttons, but I was left completely unfazed.   By page 85 I was ready to scream because nothing had happened; by page 155 I was rejoicing that something had finally happened; even the dustjacket blurb promise that "soon one of their number will die" doesn't happen until over one hundred pages after that.  Given the fact that blurbers for this book referred to it as a "chilling ghost story," "a multilayered, gothic masterpiece," or "unbearably creepy," I had high hopes, but I was seriously let down.  Even the ending was a big what??  and believe it or not, I had a huge chunk of this thing figured out long before getting there.  And let's not even go there with the ghosts that haunt Blackwater Abbey -- I don't even get why they were included.  Trust me, traditional ghost stories over the ages are part of my reading bread and butter, and  the blurber who said to "think Agatha Christie meets M.R. James"  may get it right on the Christie end, this is definitely NOT  M.R. James.   

That's me again, the red fish swimming the wrong way against the tide, since I seem to be in the minority of people that didn't care for this book.  Most readers are absolutely thrilled by this novel giving it very, very high ratings in the usual places; sadly I'm not one of them. 

The House on Vesper Sands, by Paraic O'Donnell

9781474600392
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2018
369 pp

hardcover

"men don't need magic to do evil..."

With one of the best opening scenes I've come across in my reading lately, I knew that this book and I were going to get along just fine.  The House on Vesper Sands is  a good mix of historical crime fiction and Victorian sensation fiction with more than a slight supernatural edge -- in short, it hit all of my relax-time, escape reading buttons. I read like I do everything else, wholeheartedly, giving the book in front of me my undivided attention, but sometimes I just need a brain break, and this one fit the bill completely.  Unfortunately, US readers will have to do what I did and order it from elsewhere (in my case Book Depository), since it doesn't seem to be available here except through sellers in the UK or Ireland.

Set in England of the 1890s, the novel begins one snowy night as Esther Tull arrives at a house in Half-Moon street, where she is employed by Lord Strythe as a seamstress.  The first clue we have that this is no ordinary job is that she is locked in to the room where she sews, with the butler, Carew, stationed outside in the hallway reading The Illustrated London News. The second clue that something is not right is the fact that once inside, she proceeds carefully and most quietly to break into a strongbox and remove three crystal bottles that she puts inside a satchel before dropping them off a window ledge onto the ground below. It is all part of a "promise" she'd made and she "meant to keep it."  Finally, as the book blurb reveals, she climbs onto the ledge, and jumps.   When the police arrive to investigate, they find a strange message "embroidered on her body" (not a spoiler - it's on the dustjacket blurb).

 A case of mistaken identity puts young Gideon Bliss on the case along with Inspector Cutter of the Metropolitan Police, and together they work to solve not only this case, but the case of a missing young woman as well. At the same time, society columnist Octavia Hillingdon is looking for a good story outside of the social world, and the two threads link up as she hears an incredible story about a still-open case involving the death of yet another young woman.  In the meantime the newspapers are captivating readers with their headlines about "the Spiriters," who have once again cast "a pall of fear over Whitechapel and surrounding districts." 

That's more than enough about plot; to say more would just be a shame, since I think it's probably fair to say that this book revolves around plot much more than it does its characters.  Once I started reading I realized that some of these characters seemed familiar, albeit from other books I've read, but at the same time, there's something different going on here with these people.  There's great interplay between Inspector Cutter and Gideon Bliss, for example,  that provides a lot of humor that sort of balances out the more disturbing aspects of the novel.  And while the supernatural edge of this mystery might bother some people, one of the main ideas so nicely presented in this book is that "men don't need magic to do evil," as Mr. O'Donnell clearly shows, which also provides a more serious side to the story.

  The House on Vesper Sands is pure entertainment, and one that its author must have had a great deal of fun writing.  Every now and then reading for fun is a great thing, and I'm happy to have spent time with this story.  Recommended for lighter mystery readers who don't mind a bit o' the strange in their stories.  Now I think I have to go pick up his Maker of Swans to see what I've missed.  Relax, have fun, and enjoy the ride.

The Burn Palace, by Stephen Dobyns

9780399160875
Blue Rider press, 2013
480 pp

arc -- my thanks to the publisher for my copy, along with apologies for being so abominably late to post about it

The Burn Palace has all the trappings of the paranormal about it, but once you cut through the supernatural red herrings found throughout this novel, what you have left is a story about crime. (There is one exception, which I'll get to later.) The plot winds through the book at a slow pace, but as you read, you realize that rather than focusing on the mystery at the heart of the story, the author is taking his time to examine life in a small town.  This is one of those novels you'll appreciate for the writing rather than the unraveling of the mystery and its solution, which is pretty obvious after only a short while.

The story is set in Brewster, Rhode Island, once flourishing with a cannery, fishing industry, farms, a quarry, a mill and a thriving downtown in its heyday;  now it's a another little town, a place where two-thirds of the people living there were born, attended school, have work and will probably die. The summer visitors pay the taxes that keep the town going; there's also a popular "holistic health alternative" called "The You Within You," shortened to "You-You," by most of the townspeople, and a casino 30 minutes or so away keeps many of the people employed.  It's not too far from Providence, making it easy for rent boys to come and ply their trade; hookers  find their way here from the big city as well. In this small town one night, a nurse who should have been on duty in the maternity ward of Morgan Memorial hospital was actually having a brief tryst with the chief resident in cardiology.  While she's busy having her fun, someone has taken the Summers baby, less than 24 hours old, and left a snake in its place. This act, combined with more bizarre occurrences than a town this size should experience, leads detective Woody Potter and his partner Bobby Anderson down some strange paths before they find out what exactly what's going on -- but not before a few people are killed in the meantime.

While the solution to the mystery itself was pretty obvious, there are many supernatural/paranormal red herrings in the way to solving it.  The main detective in this story knows that if he can just cut through the smokescreen that there's a perfectly logical explanation for  what's going on, that there must be a "single theory" to bring everything together.  As I said earlier, the mystery is not what makes this book -- it's the way Dobyns creates ambiance and lets his readers peek behind the closed doors of small-town America.  Mistrust of the unknown leads to violence,  a boy watches his stepfather spiral out of control and become a real-life monster because he refuses to take his meds, young girls are terrorized, and the town is saturated in an atmosphere of mass paranoia and mistrust.   What I didn't care for (the exception noted above) was that while the paranormal and supernatural elements are just a thin veneer to cover up the real crimes, Dobyns leaves in a 10 year-old boy who has a talent for telekinesis -- wrong.  This whole thing could have been left out and no one would ever have noticed.  No, No, NO!!!!

Overall, The Burn Palace turned out to be (for me) a kind of a mixed bag -- I liked the writing, I liked the way Dobyns gets into small-town life and the secrets people keep, and I liked the way the detectives shun the paranormal because they know that earthly terrors are behind the town's sudden venture into insanity.   On the other hand, the mystery is super easy to figure out, and presenting a telekinetic boy as a character in a book where there's really nothing paranormal going on was just kind of, well, ridiculous.  It reads quickly, so I'd say give it a try, and if you can, ignore the boy with the weird powers.