Ghostwalk (2007) by Rebecca Stott
My response is full of spoilers. If you haven't read the book and don't want the plot spoiled, then you should wait to read anything following the synopsis.
Synopsis [from Kirkus Reviews]: In Stott's fictional debut...writer Lydia Brooke agrees to complete the unfinished manuscript left behind by her former lover's dead mother, and she enters a world where the dead do not go gently into the night.
Cambridge University's Trinity College provides the setting for this spellbinding tale that intertwines a dark 17th-century journey with the present. Lydia, a successful writer, returns to Cambridge to attend the funeral of Elizabeth Vogelsang, whose fascination with Sir Isaac Newton led her to write a potentially controversial book about the scientific and mathematical genius. But Elizabeth's investigation into Newton's live and his practice of alchemy has gone wrong. Found dead in the river with a prism clutched in her hand, Elizabeth leaves behind a meticulously researched manuscript missing its final chapter. Cameron Brown, Elizabeth's brilliant neuroscientiest son and Lydia's former lover, compels Lydia to ghostwrite the last chapter and finish his mother's book. Drawn both to Cameron and the project, Lydia acquiesces and moves into Elizabeth's cottage, with its strange, unexplained lights and colors that appear to come from nowhere. Here she meets an odd girl named Will and and even odder friend of Elizabeth's who claims to speak with the dead. Lydia also pursues a relationship with the married Cameron, who is stalked by a violent animal-rights group that objects to his use of laboratory animals. Stott embroils Lydia in a past steeped in the mysticism of alchemy and plagued by black ambition. Intrigue from Newton's past creeps into the present, eventually sweeping both Lydia and Cameron into a series of climatic events suspended somewhere between life and death.
So....faithful readers of this blog should know that I generally like to summarize books for myself. When I use blurbs from the back of the book or the fly-leaf or a Kirkus Review, then I either have little to say about the book or I'm pretty fed up with it. This time it's the latter.
What star points I'm handing out are for the bare bones of the story. There is so much here that could have made a great mystery/thriller. I'm not a huge fan of stories from the past that somehow connect up with modern events, but it does work sometimes. Not here. The book starts out with Elizabeth's death. I was all set to have Lydia take up the reins of finishing the book and, in the course of her research, actually discover who killed Elizabeth. Oh she does....but it was a ghost. A freaking ghost. And at the end of the book we find out that one of the other characters is arrested, tried, and convicted for that death and other modern mischief.
And can we talk about that ghost? Here we have this supposedly brilliant alchemist/scholar who was all set to get a big deal fellowship at Cambridge when along comes this nobody Isaac Newton who looks to be even more brilliant and people are starting to ignore the first dude. So, does he kill his rival and ensure that he'll get the fellowship after all? No. Of course not. He arranges for a bunch of fellowship holders to die just so good old Isaac will be sure to get a fellowship. Does this make any sense to any of you? And then he waits 300 years to take out revenge when another scholar comes along and starts connecting the dots about how Newton got his scholarship. And won't rest until every bit of evidence is gone indicating what he did. And manages to kill off a few more modern people in the process. O---kay....
Then we have Lydia. Who makes a deal with the ghost that she'll write Elizabeth's book in such a way that all the evidence is suppressed and says she'll destroy everything Elizabeth found. Except she doesn't keep her word and another death results (two if you count the modern-day person who is blamed for the deaths and hangs themselves in prinson). Lydia is not, in my opinion, the wisest of women. We also have the fact that this is written from Lydia's point of view and we have no idea if she is a reliable narrator--we also aren't sure who else to believe. Cameron seems very shady and so does the girl Will. The woman who can speak to the dead comes out as the most trustworthy of all the characters directly involved in this mess.
And then on top of everything we throw in this business about the animal activists. Why? All I can figure is that it was to try and provide some red herrings about who murdered Elizabeth. And, of course, they made convenient scapegoats for the official story--because how on earth could they possibly bring a ghost to trial?
Overall, a very unsatisfying read that I completed only because I had committed myself to reading it for a challenge. When I read the synopsis I was taken by the academic connections (I love me an academic mystery). But, sadly, despite the scholarly research done by Elizabeth, this didn't strike me as an academic mystery. It was more a tale of paranormal activity. ★★--barely.
First line: Unrepaired and swollen with rain, the gate in the orchard wall refused to move until Cameron put his full weight against it and pushed, hard.
Last line: And you, Cameron Brown, man of fractures and disguises, lie closer still, under, between, inside, for we became once, and still are, entangled together, imprisoned, like time, in a skein of silk.
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Deaths = 10 (two drowned; four fell downstairs; one natural--after-effects of a fall; two beaten to death; one hanged)
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