Deadlight Hall

Starred review from March 2, 2015
The very accessible fifth novel in Rayne's neo-gothic haunted house series (after What Lies Beneath) hits highs in plot and writing, with a well-balanced mix of emotions including humor, poignancy, and the macabre. When Oxford professor and children's book author Michael Flint is approached by his colleague Leo about the titular old house and the dark memories associated with it, Flint and his paramour, antiques dealer Nell West, set off to discover the building's true history. Nell and Michael are largely bystanders, as the majority of the action takes place in the past (revealed in historical documents and letters), but readers will be too caught up in the story to miss them. The house's sordid history covers everything from Victorian penal conditions and child labor to Nazi spies and Holocaust survivors, and while some of the fates are just gruesome (there are multiple immolations), several are genuinely tragic. As always, Michael's cat, Wilberforce, provides some lighter moments, this time wreaking havoc with painters and photographers. Michael and Nell's ever-evolving relationship also provides a nice contrast to the sorrows they discover in their research. Rayne's able pacing ties together all the historical and contemporary threads in a satisfying conclusion.

February 1, 2015
Ghosts from World War II haunt a Victorian mansion. Professor Leo Rosendale is nearing retirement and moving out of his childhood home. Suspecting that the Wolvercote mansion near Oxford is haunted, he asks colleague Michael Flint to look into the matter. It's a logical choice because Michael and his ladylove, Nell, who deals in antiques, have considerable experience with the spirit world (The Whispering, 2014, etc.). Rosendale visits Nell's shop with an old figurine for her to sell. It depicts a golem, known from Jewish mythology as an evil figure but literally defined as "formless." Indeed, Michael does hear a child's voice in the house and briefly sees a childlike figure. He learns that the golem figure is pure silver and very valuable, dating back to 1780. How did Rosendale come to acquire it? Flashbacks to his childhood fill in the picture piece by piece. Recalling when he and young twins Sophie and Susannah Reiss debated the rumors they'd heard about children being sent east to the Angel of Death, it gradually becomes clear that the twins were in hiding from the Nazis. Michael's discovery of letters from the 19th century hints at an even darker history for the mansion, then known as Salamander House. Letters figure prominently in the story, as do painful memories that Michael's discoveries dredge up for Rosendale, who's never been satisfied with the cover story that the long-departed Sophie and Susannah were placed with a local family. Michael's unearthing of a journal confirms some of his worst fears. Michael and Nell's fifth thriller is skillfully structured and packed with suspense.

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March 1, 2015
In the latest Michael Flint and Nell West horror thriller, Michael, a literature and music professor at the University of Oxford, is asked to check out a supposedly haunted house, the site, decades earlier, of the disappearance of twin sisters. As it turns out, another set of twins also vanished from the house in the nineteenth century. Is there a connection between the two disappearances? Does some sinister presence inhabit the house even now? As usual, Rayne tells a modern-day ghost story with a distinctly gothic feel. The characters, especially Michael and his fiancee, antiques dealer Nell, are very well drawn; they anchor the spooky story in a recognizable reality: this isn't urban fantasy, it's an old-fashioned ghost story that takes place in the same world the reader inhabits. Fans of the series will have a great time, and, since it isn't necessary to have read the previous books, newcomers can jump right in.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)