The House of Lost Souls

This came up as a suggestion when I bought Harwood's The Ghost Writer (no relation to the Polanski movie), and its main failing is the same: after many pages of wonderfully creepy atmosphere and absorbing nested tales, the ending goes right off the rails with a truncated, poorly-explained resolution. I think both books are still well worth reading, as long as you realize they won't bring it home with a satisfying conclusion. I agree with another review as well: Cottam's language becomes repetitive in a rather distracting way. I think the adjective “blearing” was used at least six times, and it became a bit annoying. Still, he really delivers atmosphere, and I enjoyed reading this enough to check out his other work.