Autumn 1940, World War Two, the Blitz. Bombs are raining down, destroying the cities of Britain. In London, children are being removed from their families and taken to the country for safety.
Teacher Eve Parkins is in charge of one such group, and her destination is an empty and desolate house that appears to be sinking into the treacherous tidal marshes that surround it. Far from home and with no alternative, Eve and the children move in, but soon it becomes apparent that there is someone else in the house; someone who is far deadlier than any number of German bombs...
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What a wonderful ghost story The Woman in Black was! Who, who has read the original 1983 novella, could possibly have forgotten the fate of Susan Hill's determined central character, the solicitor Arthur Kipps — not to mention his unfortunate family? Who, I ask you, slept soundly after having heard tell of the tragedy of Jennet Humfrye, the half-mad mother who saw her only son sucked into the murderous muck of the causeway connecting her home to the eerie village of Crythin Gifford? Who, in the end, could hold her haunting of Eel Marsh House against her?
Over the course of The Woman in Black: Angel of Death, I came to, I'm afraid. In this "fully authorised" sort-of-sequel, though it be blessedly brief, her "bleached-bone" features appear so frequently that she seemed little less chilling, not to mention sympathetic, than the wilting wallpaper which adorns the walls of the ancient estate where at the outset our hapless protagonist is dispatched.
Forty-odd years on from the events of the darkly fantastic classic this new book purports to take its cues from, the Blitz is in full swing. Eve Parkins, a trainee teacher, removes a class of children from the dangers of living in London — and from the comfort of their families, it follows — to a mouldering old mansion in the countryside where weird things start happening immediately.