Got to love a spooky house ( )

I didn't really like the ending, it seemed a little too easy. But the lead up was good. ( )

I've skimmed a few other reviews and it seems we're all by and large in agreement: a good story overall, with great atmosphere and tension-building, but spoiled by red herrings and an anticlimactic ending.

Not a big fan of the Chekov's Gun principle, this author. Had I been Tallis's editor I would have had the following comments on his manuscript:

1) What about the dirt on the shoes? Did you just plain forget about this? Was it meant to be a diversion? If so, please acknowledge it. Have one of the characters investigate it and come to some sort of conclusion.
2) Why even bother mentioning Edward Stokes Maybury at all if he's not really going to be a part of the story except as a name? There's no information about his show, the children he took, what he did with them -- well except for
3) the red room. Dude. Write it or don't. Two or three paragraphs separated by hundreds of pages does not a creepy thing make. (It doesn't even make decent foreshadowing, as it was almost immediately forgotten.) Seeing as how it was the eventual site where the bodies were found it should have echoed through the book.

Overall disconnectedness aside I truly enjoyed the creepy atmosphere, which was somehow enhanced for me by the smothering 1970s set-dressing, because it gave the book a vibe very reminiscent of the great (though often plodding) horror movies of the 1970s.

I might have perhaps asked for some more subtlety in the sometimes-clichéd and often-stereotypical main characters' hard adherence to a sort of social studies textbook version of what the Everyman and Everywoman were like in the 70s, but it wasn't insufferable. (Not all the time.) It did show that the wife and husband were moving in opposite directions.

This was a very solid manuscript, but I don't know if I would have published it as is. Still and all, an enjoyable read if you like a haunted house story. ( )

Fun, spooky book to read while ignoring my children. I had no idea there were baby monitors in 1976, the denouement was a little melodramatic, and the steamy scenes were a little more...detailed...than I'd prefer, but otherwise, a fun read. I don't think it will keep me awake tonight, though. ( )

The prose was remarkably flat - all through the book I felt like I was reading a summary of something much longer - and to be honest I could not care less about the main characters' ridiculous infidelities. The haunting was interesting, although not wrapped up very well, I don't think. ( )