The Dead of Winter

Synopsis: Michael Vyner recalls a terrible story, one that happened to him. One that would be unbelievable if it weren't true! Michael's parents are dead and he imagines that he will stay with the kindly lawyer, executor of his parents' will ...Until he is invited to spend Christmas with his guardian in a large and desolate country house. His arrival on the first night suggests something is not quite right when he sees a woman out in the frozen mists, standing alone in the marshes. But little can prepare him for the solitude of the house itself as he is kept from his guardian and finds himself spending the Christmas holiday wandering the silent corridors of the house seeking distraction. But lonely doesn't mean alone, as Michael soon realises that the house and its grounds harbour many secrets, dead and alive, and Michael is set the task of unravelling some of the darkest secrets of all. This is a nail-biting story of hauntings and terror by the master of the genre, Chris Priestley.

Review: I love Chris Priestley's 'Tales of Terror' and perhaps that's why I was a little bit disappointed with this full length story. It's got all the right ingredients, there's lots of ghostly goings on, a creepy mansion, weird inhabitants and plenty of atmosphere (it was quite Susan Hillish in that respect) but it seemed a little too predictable to me. There was a twist at the end which I saw coming a mile away, which, as you will know, means it was as plain as the nose on your face. Having said that, this is a children's book and so, as an adult, I'm judging it unfairly. I was hoping that he'd write a longer version of one of his tales of terror, something maybe a little more twisted and macabre but this felt more like a traditional ghost story.

I'm being quite hard on it because I did enjoy it, I was just hoping for something more. Perhaps I got too excited and carried away by the thought of a full length story from Chris. The synopsis above pretty much explains the storyline. Michael is another good ghost story character because again he does a lot of that sort of forbidden snooping around that is bound to lead to trouble (if you heard strange banging noises seemingly coming from inside some wood panelling would you investigate? .. of course you would and you'd go looking for strange ghostly ladies who appear in the mist and then suddenly disappear again too wouldn't you.) Michael clearly hasn't heard of the phrase 'curiosity killed the cat' which is just as it should be. There is a baddie and, like I said earlier, it's fairly easy to spot him/her .. I'm sure even Scooby Doo & Shaggy would have whipped his/her hood off long before the end (figuratively speaking .. he/she didn't wear a hood .. if they had then my detection of them may have come even earlier.) Of course it might be that I'm becoming quite Sherlockian but to be honest, I very much doubt it.

I did get the vague chills, but the central heating had packed up so it could've been that. The story was very readable, I just didn't feel it quite lived up to my expectations (which admittedly were sky high.)