This volume collects three short whodunnits from the author of the "Starbridge" series. Though each is enjoyable in itself, they're collectively not a patch on Howatch's later work, and each feels both dated, and unfinished.
'The Shrouded Walls' is the best of the bunch, set in the early eighteenth century and extremely reminiscent of Wilkie Collins. Marianne is an illegitimate orphan, proposed to out of the blue by Axel Bransen, who must marry in order to claim his inheritance. Initially attracted to her mysterious husband, Marianne comes to suspect him of having murdered his own father to claim the remote estate of Haraldsdyke, and finds herself trapped in a strange world of witchcraft and dark family secrets.
I enjoyed the beginning of this novella very much. The plot was intriguing and original, and the atmosphere of Haraldsdyke wonderfully oppressive. And then suddenly, it was over. Especially to anyone used to Howatch's long family sagas, the story lacked a middle: the beautiful set up was rather wasted on a ending which was over too fast.
And sadly, this set the pattern for the rest of the collection. In the second story, the beautiful April's friends suddenly realise that no one has seen her since the day that her twin sister discovered she was having an affair with her husband. With a reunion now on the cards and the group drawn back to the remote Scottish croft where April was last seen, is a gruesome discovery about to take place, or has April simply run off for a better life? Well, the fact that the story is called 'April's Grave' probably gives that game away. Oops. I'd hoped for some kind of twist, but the "set up, set up, set up - oh, you're the murderer, the end" plot didn't provide.
'Aprils Grave' has the unmistakable flavour of the early seventies about it: people in posh restaurants eat baked alaska, coffee is French not American, and divorce is secret and shameful. But 'The Devil on Lammas Night' owes even more to that decade. It's Dennis Wheatley by numbers, with the all the requisite ingredients: stately home, bevy of beautiful women, charming but mysterious leader, cat familiar and slightly spooky twins.
Nothing here is actually bad. But none of it is as good as Howatch is capable of, and that, ultimately, left me disappointed.
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