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Former rock star Martin Stride owns a beautiful house in extensive grounds that provide a safe haven for his family. His children play in the disused railway station on some land he bought years ago from a local farmer. Then the Stride's rural idyll takes a sinister turn as his daughter, Millie, starts playing a song that was popular in the trenches of the First World War, which she says she heard men singing near the waiting room of the old station. Then his son, Peter, is frightened by the leering face of a man dressed in an old army uniform looking in through the window of the waiting room. Stride turns for help to television's popular ghost hunter, ex-SAS officer Julian Creed. Only there's one problem with Creed – unknown to his adoring public, he doesn't actually believe in ghosts and his TV show is nothing more than a combination of clever tricks and Creed's own showmanship. Creed agrees to spend a night in the waiting room and, after that, nothing will ever be quite the same for him as he has his first, genuine encounter with something that he really can't explain. With the help of his researcher, Elena Coyle, Creed starts to uncover the history of the old railway station, once a hub for troop movements to and from the horrors of the trenches, and also a staging point for young men mentally scarred by their experiences abroad to a local lunatic asylum. A past that appears to be still all too real is very definitely coming back to haunt the present, and Stride's family can run, but it proves impossible for them to hide. I spent the first half of this book bemoaning the leaden prose and dreadfully stilted dialogue, and the second half wondering whether Cottam has in fact pulled off a very good attempt at a contemporary Gothic horror with all the classic elements of such novels including an atmospheric setting, some genuinely creepy supernatural elements and a rather nicely depicted Roman Catholic exorcist. If it wasn't for the fact that the dialogue would have been more suited to the inhabitants of a Wilkie Collins novel, I would be inclined to come down on the side of the latter, but as it is, Cottam lets himself, and his characters, down badly every time they open their mouths. And someone really needs to tell him that even in a supernatural thriller it is only acceptable to use the word 'gloaming' once, if at all. Apart from these very obvious drawbacks, the book does have several redeeming features. The story evolves reasonably organically, and provides some genuinely chilling moments. Elena Coyle's research also adds an interesting dimension as it unfolds, although the lengthy diary extracts that Cottam weaves in and out of the narrative could easily have been shortened without any detriment to the story. The climax of the story felt rather rushed, and there were elements of it that I felt still remained unexplained, but I did like the way Julian Creed's own personal story developed and the epilogue was particularly elegant and satisfying. § Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, October 2010
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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