Interesting book with an interesting approach, if nothing else.Contemporary books with Victorian era suspense are rather sparse, so I was glad to come across this one since I completely, completely adore gothic horror. There's something very special in that style - above all it is the way how the most respectful and well-behaved ladies and gentlemen become faced with something completely inexplicable and monstrous that defies their rationalist world view. But not only that, in this book everything happens in a modern day world, through modern day knowledge and science. That allows the book to be viewed from various interesting additional perspectives.In essence, the plot is very faithful to the gothic style (quite reminiscent of Le Fanu's Green Tea in fact). A man sees a female in a painting. The mysterious female begins to haunt him, but it appears that no-one else can see her. Strange things happen. Is the woman a ghost, or is the man mad? That is the question. The mandatory descriptions of inherited countryside mansions, gentlemen's clubs, wealth, monocles and tweed jackets have not been forgotten either.The thrill in the novel was mainly great and the author managed to retain descent amounts of mystery for the reader to ponder, before the last pages anyway. I also got really good laughs from a particular scene where the protagonist destroys a dinner atmosphere by explaining about the mitochondrial DNA origins of Brits, making everyone thinks there's something seriously wrong with him because gasp - he isn't talking about "normal" things like golf or hunting or gossip. I'm all too familiar with that! However in some ways in general the approach was a little bit too scientific, almost so that this novel could be considered to stigmatise mental illness (schizophrenia) to obnoxious degrees.The author did not really explore the parapsychological vehicle, rather the book presents the view that everyone who sees or hears imaginary things is mad, must be locked up and medicated. I don't claim that this is what the author wants to say, instead from between the lines one can see that he has a somewhat anti-psychiatric agenda. And there are a couple pretty obvious plot details pointing to this.Towards the end stages the book had some sections which I found very hard to read. It angered me and... I wished the things would have been written to go differently. It's frustrating to be vague but I feel it's hard to say much about the content without spoiling the plot. The characters could have had more depth as well, especially the protagonist's wife, and sometimes it seemed as if the author would have tried all too hard to make his puppets move the story to a certain direction instead of achieving a natural flow. That distracted me.Overall though, I still enjoyed the book and found it entertaining and fascinating. Personally I would like to give it rather high points. I give it three stars because I didn't want to put it down, I wanted to keep going and see what was happening. But it is definitely not as marvelous as his book - Salmon Fishing in Yemen. Paul Torday writes with an uncertain hand here and this reader got the sense that he wasn't sure whether he wanted this effort slotted in the horror or the psychological thriller genre. The novel is written with dual perspectives, that of Michael and of his wife Elizabeth, which I liked. However, I wanted a better resolution on the subject of the girl in the long green dress - the Lamia. If she was a figment of Michael's imagination why then did it seem as though his wife caught sight of her as well?There were too many loose ends, I felt, and the mitochondrial DNA bit about the original ancestry of people who make up the population of Britain wasn't elucidated well, it failed to become a seamless part of the narrative.
What do You think about Ventovieras (2009)?
Cleverly written. Gripping wt suspense and leaving me wanting to know more as I turned the pages.
—ralu
A deep tale of the past colliding with the here and now...great read
—kassidy227
Nice and erie but never going to keep you up at night.
—Natasha
