This is a fun and engaging read. It feels very Victorian, very Collins, very seasonal sensation somehow! This is a fireside fright told by the flickering fire with a hot cup of cocoa…
It’s a typical Collins mystery with a strong Gothic atmosphere throughout, starting off with a cryptic Baker Street-like consultation with a mysterious continental Countess with fear in her eyes and a strange tale.
The narrative is enriched by its shifting settings: Venice, Ireland, and London all blur together into a tangled, unsettling backdrop. The build-up towards the palazzo in Venice and its mystery is effective.
At the heart of the novel is a familiar but effective Collins mystery: a man who dies in Venice under suspicious circumstances with a new wife, a lost courier, a broken engagement, a foreign setting that feels faintly dangerous and morally ambiguous, and interlocking webs of secrets and love. Add in a haunted room in a Venetian palazzo and a vaguely guilty widow, and you have a Victorian continental romp.
Reminiscent of My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier and Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
Overall, it’s an accomplished Gothic mystery with just enough spectral activity to satisfy. It’s party formulaic and predictable, but that’s also part of its charm.
One word: frisson.
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