Synopsis:The old house has a dark secret. When Mum takes a new partner and two families join up, there are bound to be tensions. Two plots work together in this spooky macabre thriller where the paranormal is just normal enough to tighten its grip around your imagination.

Review: Real life invaded by the paranormal : much more credible to readers over-familiar with X-File storylines than going off to Narnia. The Kellermans and others provide psychological thrillers for adults, so why not something similar for younger readers? The story board here is beguilingly familiar – our Mum wants to live with their Dad so we have to get on with those other kids. And they want to move to an old house (that from the book cover looks like a prop from Psycho). Joel gets nightmares and Cassie’s stuff is thrown about : there is evil in the house.

Richardson has written other books like The Devil’s Footsteps and The Summoning. Her plots rush along, her characters convince, and the books make an entertaining read. She is good on atmosphere : hints of evil build up to a powerful end – noises upstairs, gusts of wind, musty smells. Joel and Cassie, like the reader, are not suggestible but Richardson surrounds us all with a sense of brooding danger – can you actually die in a bad dream? can you contact the dead through the ouija board? is what happens just adolescent tantrums? do those old photos tell us something important? Just enough credibility, in fact, to draw in the most sceptical reader.

Of course, the characters ask for it! They go looking for danger – emotions run high, they explore attics and cellars, they believe the power of dreams – and links with the past reveal what the house has seen. Even ten pages from the end you never quite know what you’ll find, but it’s something nasty behind the brickwork, the result of savage cruelty long ago. Alan Garner used to say that dream and myth allow emotions to be worked through, and that is an edge this book lacks, but on its level as a thriller it is a very enjoyable read. Originally a hardback from The Bodley Head (2006), also in the Random House stable.

2007-04-06