It starts with a long, atmospheric, gentle and loving description of a house, a house which was to be not only setting but almost character in this novel. As Ruben falls in love with the house as well as the woman who is showing it to him, the Ann Rice enthusiast does also. The book enfolds slowly, leisurely, lovingly, gently, yet mysteriously, as the author's novels often do. There is story and violence, but this author takes time to admire the world and the people surrounding and engaged in those. As always, she explores questions of good and evil (or innocence and evil) and of longevity. Ann Rice has never let me down.
I have now started Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood. What always strikes me about these books is that the mystery seems much too complicated to be solved in the 151 pages of the book. On the first night of her train trip to Ballarat, the first class coach is swept with chloroform which renders everyone on board unconscious, but Phryne. She, however, is feeling the effects of the drug as she stumbles throughout the car, opening windows and pulling the emergency cord. An old woman in the first cabin is missing (later to be found dead) and her adult daughter has a chloroform-soaked rag over her face. Add to that, a young girl (13) is found with no memory. Already on page 45, I have no idea how this double mystery can be solved in only 106 pages.
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