The Haunting of Drumroe

The Haunting of Drumroe
Claudette Nicolle | Fawcett Gold Medal | 141 pages | 1971

Eileen Donegan returns to Ireland and her ancestral family home after receiving a cryptic letter of help from her aunt Agnes, Lady Donegon of Drumroe. Driving to the remote estate, Eileen is nearly killed by a tree falling across the road, sending her rental car plunging into a lake. Finally arriving at the great house, she is alarmed to discover that her aunt has gone missing, and that none of the household staff can explain her absence.

A familiar gothic thriller template is further established with the introduction of two competing love interests for Eileen, the dark-haired solicitor Rory Muldoon and the gray-eyed local historian Colin Riorden. A bit of unnecessary backstory relating to Eileen’s philandering ex-husband lays the groundwork for her shifting affections between the two men, which is expressed mostly through some feverish hand holding and a few chaste kisses.

Claudette Nicolle is a pseudonym for John Messman, who wrote a number of these genre staples, almost universally featuring covers depicting women in nightgowns running away from castles. Hints of this underlying male authorship abound by the fascination with Eileen’s sleeping in the nude, and the repeated references to her firm and ample breasts.

Although there are no actual hauntings in The Haunting of Drumroe, supernatural elements emerge through Eileen’s psychic abilities. Reportedly descended from an infamous local witch, Eileen has received psychic impressions of family tragedies at various periods throughout her life, some at great distance. Now, her psychic impressions tell her that aunt Agnes is dead, although the details are maddeningly scarce.

Beyond simply “knowing” that her aunt is dead, Eileen’s psychic talents are mostly underutilized and not particularly relevant in solving the mystery. Eileen is even less gifted as a traditional detective, since she seems bluntly oblivious to the fairly overt clues leading to the person responsible for her aunt’s disappearance, the attempts on her own life, and a laundry list of other mysterious deaths in the family.

The Irish setting is modestly rendered, but appealing: the small villages, the rolling hills, the chilly lough, the lonely cemetery, and—of course—the weird pagan rituals in the woods at night. The political violence in Northern Ireland is introduced as a possible explanation for an attack on Eileen, but it does feel slightly out of place in an otherwise standard genre work that could have easily been set in the nineteenth century.

A perfectly serviceable, if altogether unmemorable, gothic thriller.

Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Night Has a Thousand Eyes
Cornell Woolrich | Ballantine | 1983 (first published 1945) | 304 pages

A dark prophecy of death sends a man and his daughter into a downward spiral of despair in this supernaturally-tinged noir from the famed author of Rear Window.

While strolling along the riverside late one night, off-duty detective Tom Shawn comes across a distraught young woman standing upon the raised embankment, seemingly in contemplation of jumping to her death. Talking her down from the ledge, Shawn escorts her to a nearby diner, where she confides her fatalistic story of a foretold death.

The book is split roughly into thematic halves, with the first recounting the series of successful prognostications leading Jean Reid and her father, Harlan, to become convinced of the veracity of a psychic’s visions of the future. The predictions culminate in a very precise foretelling of Harlan’s death three days hence at midnight.

Even the means of death, simply described by the psychic as death by lion, becomes somehow less absurd when a pair of lions escapes from a local traveling sideshow.

The second half of the book is less satisfying, describing Shawn’s attempts at stopping the prophecy and saving Harlan’s life. Even considering that Shawn is calling in a personal favor from his superior on the police force, the sheer number of officers pulled into an extensive investigation and protection operation—based on a nominal threat described in a psychic vision—is almost as comical as the purported means of death.

Harlan’s rapid descent from self-confident businessman to sniveling coward in the light of the fatal prediction also deflates much of the interest in seeing Shawn triumph in saving his life. By the time a wasted Harlan begs not to be left alone while watching the clock tick down to midnight, many readers will probably wish that Shawn would drag the defeated wretch down to the zoo and toss him headfirst in the lion’s den himself.

The final dinner party, characterized by Shawn and Jean’s forced cheerfulness in order to distract Harlan’s broodings, goes on much too long, with several instances of conversational near-blunders referencing time or tomorrow. Even playing records isn’t safe, with unexpected lyrics mentioning destiny threatened to send Harlan deeper into a fully self-absorbed despair. Intended as a suspenseful, against-the-clock countdown, the scene just drags along, not helped by the latent romantic undercurrent of Shawn and Jean’s banter.

However, the overall mood is effectively dark, with a fatalistic, downbeat atmosphere for characters to squirm around inside while fighting against their destinies. Although the conclusion casts the nature of the predictions themselves in an ambiguous light, the inevitable outcome clearly suggests the futility of struggling against one’s own fate.

***

SPOILER ALERT: Fraud or not, the psychic was—strictly speaking—not wrong about the lion!

The Black Abbot

The Black Abbot
Edgar Wallace | Hodder & Stoughton | 1959 (first published 1926) | 192 pages

Harry Alford, 18th Earl of Chelford, is obsessed with the legend of a buried treasure hidden somewhere on the grounds of Fossaway Manor. His search for the cache of gold bars–not to mention a bottle containing a magical elixir granting immortal life–is thwarted by his fear of the Black Abbot. This ghostly specter is rumored to restlessly stalk the estate, the reputed site of his murder two centuries earlier, and protect the treasure from discovery.

Although an early encounter with the Black Abbot is reported by a second hand witness, nearly a dozen chapters elapse before the sinister figure is directly spotted in the ruins of the old abbey. The bulk of the early novel revolves around a series of schemes and extortions to secure the engagement of Leslie Gine, Harry’s fiancée and sister of the Alford family attorney, Arthur Gine.

Arthur has accumulated a series of gambling debts, fueled by theft from his sister’s inheritance and from the Alford family trust. However, his plan to wed Leslie to the Earl of Chelford is thwarted by his colleague, Fabrian Gilder, a shady character who has his own romantic designs for Leslie. Complicating the romantic landscape is Richard Alford, Harry’s brother and penniless “second son” of the Alford family, who is Leslie’s secret love.

Leslie seems to be more of a prize than the buried treasure, with a spinning wheel of characters determined to win her affections. The unfolding of various plots to win Leslie’s hand in marriage easily supplants the hunt for the buried treasure. The Black Abbot remains mostly a background figure until deep into the book, when the murder of a figure in a black cowl sends the narrative into a more action-oriented mode.

Although mixing elements of blackmail, extortion, and murder, the obsessive search for treasure–whether buried or married–also manages a more lighthearted tone, although perhaps it could simply be a result of the book’s vintage or melodramatic machinations. Strip away the mystery elements and play up the slapstick, and the single-minded pursuit of treasure could eventually sink into It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

After Leslie is kidnapped, the chase is on through the subterranean labyrinth sprawling beneath the ruined abbey. The atmosphere is evocatively gothic, and although the villain’s reveal is not particularly unexpected, the lagging narrative finally gets some punch. Some of the other characters who were initially teased as potential villains show an unexpected willingness to assist in Leslie’s rescue. They remain morally dubious, but the shift in allegiance is curious.

However, the essence of Leslie’s attraction remains stubbornly vague, with her character finally reduced to a kidnap victim repeatedly screaming for the aid of her beloved, would-be rescuer, “Dick! Dick!”

The Circular Staircase

The Circular Staircase
Mary Roberts Rinehart | Dell | 1970 (first published 1908) | 224 pages

“Miss Innes,” he said. “How are your nerves tonight?”

“I have none,” I said.

Not to be confused with The Spiral Staircase, this early Mary Roberts Rinehart mystery centers on the eerie shenanigans and strange deaths plaguing a country house and its unwitting occupants.

Self-described “elderly spinster” Rachel Inness (although she’s only fifty!) rents Sunnyside, a summer house in the country, for herself and her grown niece and nephew, Gertrude and Halsey. Starting the very first night, Miss Inness is troubled by strange noises inside and possible prowlers outside the house.

On the second night, she is awakened by a gunshot, and rushes downstairs to discover a body at the foot of the circular staircase. Arnold Armstrong, the son of the house’s owner, has been shot dead, and her nephew Halsey has disappeared. In addition to the question of the killer’s identity, the reason for Armstrong’s presence in the rented house is unknown.

Over the course of the next few weeks, there are more strange intrusions into the house. The household staff are frightened by inexplicable bumps in the night, and unnerved by encounters with shadowy figures on the grounds of the estate. In addition to the murder, other threads are woven into the overall mystery, including an abandoned child, a bank embezzlement, and a potential kidnapping.

For a sleepy country estate, the comings and goings are numerous. If this story was given a theatrical treatment, a churning pinwheel of characters would constantly be popping in stage-right and stage-left, ejaculating new developments before slamming doors and exiting.

Miss Inness proves to be a cheekily unflappable character, determined in her almost comical resolve to uncover the mysterious happenings at Sunnyside. Driven to clear her niece and nephew, who become increasingly tangled up in the case, she constantly juggles new clues and developments in a tenacious commitment to solving the murder. Yet, her character retains a light touch in the face of deadly events, even when she finds herself locked in a secret room with an unknown assailant.

Written in 1908, the text displays a few instances of bluntly offensive racist observations, mostly directed at some members of the household staff. Beyond simply the era in which the book was written, the prejudice on exhibit also stems from the inherent elitism of the wealthy leisure class who possess the luxury and wherewithal to engage in these types of cozy parlour mysteries. After a clue is provided by a tramp riding the rails, Miss Inness sincerely insists upon the existence of a “fraternity of hobos.”

The author, Mary Roberts Rinehart, is a renowned practitioner of the “Had I But Known” narrative style, and her technique is on full view in The Circular Staircase. Written from the perspective of Miss Inness from sometime after the events in the case, the dire consequences of unfolding events are frequently intimated by hints of this future knowledge.

However, other than establishing a bit of foreboding atmosphere, this technique fails to add much to the proceedings. Arguably, it could raise the irritation level in some less patient readers, who may ultimately demand, “Stop hinting and just tell us what the f**k happened!“

Jaws

Jaws
Peter Benchley | Bantam | 1974 | 309 pages

Too young to dream that my parents would ever take me to the screening of Jaws when it opened in theaters in the summer of 1975, I nevertheless managed to persuade my mother to buy me the Peter Benchley novel. Presented in a wire-mesh basket at the supermarket (possibly a Piggly Wiggly) check-out next to the impulse tabloids that shoppers browse while waiting in line, the Bantam paperback drove itself into my consciousness like the apex predator surging upward on the book’s cover. Since I couldn’t see the movie, I simply refused to be denied the book, which I consumed greedily (and somewhat haltingly, since it was clearly above my recommended reading level, if for content and subject matter rather than vocabulary) in a few sittings over the weekend.

How does the book hold up upon rereading after forty-plus years?

First, an obvious but critical disclaimer: This is not Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. However you feel about the director, his lack of subtlety or ham-fisted sentimentality, Spielberg’s consummate skill as a filmmaker and mastery of the techniques of the medium are fully on display in the film, even though he was only in his mid-twenties at the time of production. Jaws, the movie, not only established the foundation (for better, or for worse) for the summer blockbuster, but detonated a full-blown pop-cultural phenomenon.

Benchley’s novel lacks the bullet-proof construction and expert pacing of the film, allowing ample time to wallow in the melodrama of resort town life, with its perpetual tug-of-war between the tourists and the townies. The strained marriage between Chief Martin Brody, an Amity local, and his bored wife, Ellen, a former summers-only tourist who now longs for her lost lifestyle, occupies the emotional core of the novel. Even Matt Hooper, the ichthyologist from Wood’s hole, serves more as a catalyst for rekindling Ellen’s past life than as an agent for the study and capture of the shark plaguing the waters off Amity.

Not that the book lacks suspense. The early chapters involving the fateful skinny dipper, Christine Watkins, and a doomed young boy on an inflatable raft deliver thrilling, visceral sequences. Lean, economical prose details the movements of the shark, signalling the fateful outcome of the encounters long before the victim becomes aware of the threat. Another attack, in shallow water barely at wading depth, is described via a third-person account, but still resonates with a primal horror, as the victim is repeatedly hit while onlookers attempt to pull him from the surf.

In contrast to the contemporary environment of “Mega”, “Super”, or “Ultra” prefix marketing hyperbole, it’s interesting to note that the monster shark terrorizing the swimmers of Amity is referred to simply as “the fish”.

The middle chapters tend to drag, including a long dinner party that underscores the tension between the Brody, his wife, and Hooper, but at the expense of further stalling the narrative. The overall pacing suffers another blow with the subsequent chapter, detailing Ellen Brody’s affair with Hooper. Awkward at best, their illicit encounter degenerates into wince-inducing territory as Ellen reveals some regressively outdated and offensive (by today’s standards) erotic fantasies to Hooper during their seductive tête-à-tête. The specifics surrounding the application of spray-on deodorant and the logistics of Ellen’s panties are probably not the best subjects for rumination while waiting for the great fish to resurface.

The story is completely transformed in part three, however, after Brody hires Quint, a laconic local fisherman, to catch and kill the shark. Although the melodrama from the mainland continues in the onboard tension between Brody and Hooper, the focus intensifies as the intrepid shark-hunters set out in Quint’s boat, the Orca, setting the stage for an epic struggle for the bragging rights atop the food chain. Quint is a compelling character, although his seemingly sudden obsession with the shark becomes a shorthand substitute for Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, a reduction that culminates in a haunting, even if overly familiar, image of his final demise.

Incidentally, I would return to that supermarket a few years later, age 11, and beg for the purchase of yet another impulse checkout display: Alan Dean Foster’s movie tie-in novelization of Star Wars. That one I took home and immediately read cover to cover, twice.

When Michael Calls

When Michael Calls
John Farris | Pocket Books | 1975 (first published 1967) | 249 pages

“Auntie Helen…. I’m dead, aren’t I?”

Helen Connelly is plagued by a series of unsettling phone calls, which threaten to tear apart the quiet small-town life she shares with her young daughter, Peggy. The caller, a boy about ten years old, claims to be Helen’s deceased nephew, Michael, who tragically froze to death sixteen years previously after running away from home during a blizzard.

The boy on the phone pleads with Helen for help, resurrecting the family’s tragic history and reopening the barely-healed wounds of her own personal guilt. Michael died under Helen’s care, after she took charge of him and his older brother, Craig, following the death of her sister in a mental institution. The telephone calls reawaken Helen’s grief over his death, and the remorse in her own role in committing her sister.

The early chapters tap into the supernatural dread of a disembodied voice on the line, a crackling connection filled with recriminations against Helen. The eerie atmosphere intensifies when Peggy claims to have seen Michael in the playground at school, bringing the specter of Helen’s dead nephew threateningly close. However, after an odd death—by hundreds of bee stings—the focus transforms from ghost story to murder mystery.

Sheriff Hap Washbrook recruits the assistance of Doremus, a retired homicide detective from Chicago. Although the phone calls, and occasional apparitions of a young boy, continue, the perspective gradually shifts from Helen to Doremus. The detective ultimately posits that Michael may still somehow be alive, returned to exact revenge on those he feels responsible for the death of his mother.

The small-town Ozarks setting is evocative for the story, which builds up a psychological crime story upon its paranormal foundations. The resolution and reveal of the culprit comes a bit early, however, leaving a final stretch overly reliant on action. This premature denouement also echoes the epilogue of Hitchcock’s Psycho, with its too-tidy explanation of mental illness and criminal behavior. The story delivers a few creepy moments and a brisk pace, but feels shallow, even though touching upon some heavy emotional themes.

There is also a curiously latent romantic subplot, initially spinning out from the male characters contemplating their prospective chances with Helen. It resolves itself with an odd coda featuring Doremus and his new bride on their honeymoon in Jamaica. The effect makes the entire book wrongly feel like a first installment of the Doremus Mysteries.

Worms

Worms
James M. Montague | Futura | 1980 | 186 pages

Worms…from Hell! Or possibly, transformed from the construction of a local nuclear power plant. Or, perhaps, summoned from the narrator’s guilt-ridden mind. Nonetheless, choose a reason and scream in horror, “Woooooorms!”

James Hildebrand has a problem. After a failed attempt at boating, James and his unnamed wife end up spending the remainder of their holiday on the remote Norfolk coast. James becomes infatuated with the desolate landscape, a remote flatland of marshes and windswept shore. Determined to buy a local cottage and retire on his modest pension, he needs only one bit of critical support to enact his plan: his combative wife, and more importantly, her money.

Part One builds a foundation for a cracking psychological horror story, with the manifestations of a few worms serving as a foul hint of what lies beneath the brooding landscape—or inside the mind of the narrator. A sense of foreboding prevails, waiting for James to eventually clear the obstacle(s) between him and his dreams of peaceful retirement. Arguably, there is a baked-in misogyny in the telling, with the wife occupying a shrewish singular dimension. To James, his wife possesses qualities equally repellent to those found in the little red worms he keeps seeing around the village. However, this perception belongs solely to James, whose point-of-view drives the narrative, and whose malicious actions preclude him from much sympathy or support from the reader.

Part Two succumbs to the exploitative promise of the book’s title, deviating from psychological horror to establish a rationale for the inevitable squirmy rampage. The introduction of the nuclear power plant on the marshlands outside the village, and the citizen’s council formed to fight its construction, represents the dullest stretch of the story. It also removes the worms from the narrator’s head and places them squarely into the real world, although the offered explanation seems mostly rote, a shorthand reason easily lifted from low-budget fifties science fiction movies.

Perhaps it’s a moot point, because when the worms come, it’s a force of nature. The descriptions are excitedly histrionic, with gleeful exposition on the disgusting nature of the torrents of attacking worms. The revolting things form a malevolent biomass, surging like a slimy tide. They more closely resemble the creature in The Blob, a single unified monster working in conglomeration, than individual animals in nature-runs-amok tales. The small-scale horrors are still present, as worms wriggle and press into clothing, probing for entry into the unprotected mouth, nose, ears or eyes.

However, since the point-of-view is from James, the scope is not altogether apocalyptic, but remains personal. If other characters did not react (or die), there would still be a nagging doubt about whether or not the worms were a projection of his damaged psyche. Except for recoiling in horror from worms, James displays little emotion or guilt from his horrible deeds.

In the context of the large-scale attack, the focus shifts again to the psychological, with a new human threat delivered by a plot twist worthy of a crime drama or gothic potboiler. Although not unexpected, the resulting character drama plays out against the backdrop of the worm siege, revealing the true motivations of the handful of survivors. It even hints at another reason for the worms, a malignant local family history of corruption and abuse.

Although the quiet horror of the early chapters is most effective, the disparate threads [like, ahem, woooooorms] come together to form a satisfyingly crunchy whole, positioning Worms favorably in the canon of environmental horrors of its era.

Terror on the Beach

Terror on the Beach
Made-for-Television Movie | Starring Dennis Weaver, Estelle Parsons, Susan Dey, Kristoffer Tabori | Written by Bill Svanoe | Directed by Paul Wendkos | Originally Aired on September 18, 1973

A milquetoast dad and his family run afoul of a group of sadistic hippies during a camping trip on the beach in this modest made-for-television thriller with trappings of familial melodrama.

After their camper is run off the road by young hooligans in a dune buggy, Neil Glynn (Dennis Weaver) and his family proceed to an isolated stretch of California beach. Of course they are followed, but before the terror begins, family rifts are exposed as conversations around the campsite turn to matters relating to societal ills and the generation gap. DeeDee (Susan Dey) confronts her mother, Arlene (Estelle Parsons), over the role of the dedicated housewife in the burgeoning feminist era, while Steve (Kristoffer Tabori) decries his father’s ineffectual pacificim in dealing with their roadside tormentors.

Interestingly, the father-son dynamic reverses the expected roles of the era, with the son advocating a more confrontational tactic. Steve’s potential call to violence seemingly contradicts his generation’s outrage over the war in Vietnam, and places his father in the position of humanizing the enemy. Steve’s view of his father arguably travels back yet another generation, channelling a bit of Jim Stark (James Dean) from Rebel Without a Cause, who suffers a near existential embarrassment toward his own emasculated father Frank (Jim Backus).

The motivations of the faux family of hippies is never really explained, as their torment of the Glynn family slowly ramps up from simple intimidation to creepy mannequin stunts, nighttime audio terrors, and eventual campsite destruction, escalating finally in a violent dune buggy chase on the beach. If anything, the Manson-lite group of long-haired youth serve as a sort of cardboard bogeyman to Neil Glynn’s perception of a straight-laced family unit. Ultimately, the elder Glynn will have his mano-a-mano moment, as he reaches deep inside for some latent violence in a beatdown against the cult leader.

Overall, the thrills are scarce, with the most unintentionally horrifying scene coming as an enthusiastic family sing-a-long of I Went to the Animal Fair around the campfire. For Susan Dey, it’s certainly no Laurie Partridge moment singing back-up vocals on Come On Get Happy. Perhaps in some universe there exists a missed crossover opportunity as Partridge Family Terror on the Beach—but unlike Neil Glynn, Shirley Partridge (Shirley Jones) simply would not suffer the barbarity of a group of misbehaving flower children.

Continue reading →

The Secret of the Chateau

The Secret of the Chateau
Caroline Farr | Signet Books | 1967 | 128 pages

“You!” I ejaculated in English, “are the most . . . !”

“You,” I managed, “are the most insufferable . . . !”

When our young heroine, Denise Gérard, sputters out these words to Etienne Métier, a roguishly good-looking man she meets after a near-deadly encounter on lands owned by her uncle, little doubt exists that they will soon kiss, and within a hundred or so pages, be married. This overt telegraphing of direction characterizes all aspects of The Secret of the Chateau, a perfectly serviceable gothic thriller that holds virtually no surprises from start to finish.

Denise leaves her home in New Orleans following the death of her grandfather, traveling to the Châtaigneraie region of France at the bequest of Maurice Gérard, an uncle she has never met. The reclusive Maurice, a former war hero from the time of the French Resistance, desires to re-establish contact with his last surviving family member. He advances her a large sum of money to visit him at his manor, the Château-Les-Vautours, a massive bulk that reminds Denise of a prison.

Denise discovers Maurice to be a moody figure, wearing a black velvet mask to cover the extensive burns on his face received during the war, and a metal prosthetic in place of his missing right hand. She is shocked by his casual cruelty when she witness him shooting pigeons, slowed after consuming a scattering of drugged seeds on the grounds of the estate, their remains ostensibly left to feed the manor’s namesake vultures. His surly, masculine housekeeper, Gabrielle, and heavy-set chauffeur, Albert, display a barely concealed contempt for Denise, and exert an unusual hold over Maurice, seemingly out of place for their role as servants.

Warned not to travel to the village alone, Denise learns of a series of strange disappearances involving young women. The countryside takes on an additional sense of menace after Denise encounters Etienne, one of Maurice’s tenants on the estate’s farmland. Etienne immediately confides his true identity to her by declaring outright, “I am an agent of the French government,” and expressing his theory that an infamous German war criminal is currently hiding in the region.

All the story elements fall exactly into their prescribed places, but The [Not-So] Secret of the Chateau harbors enough of the requisite baroque trappings—a gloomy estate, a disfigured lord in a velvet mask, a group of suspicious servants, vultures ominously circling around a spot inside the forest, and a brooding mystery involving the young women of the village—to potentially provide some gothic comfort food for the inclined reader.

***Spoiler Alert*** The only real surprise came when Gabrielle was NOT ultimately revealed to be a man in disguise—just big hands, apparently. ***End Spoiler***

The Brooding House

The Brooding House
Alice Brennan | Prestige Books | 1965 | 254 pages

Young, red-haired nurse Larcy Ryan accepts a position as live-in caretaker for David Magnam, a terminal patient living in a rambling house on the shores of Lake Huron. Larcy finds David to be a disagreeable man, always mocking and insulting, referring to her as “Miss Bedpan”. He also exists in a constant state of paranoia regarding the possible malevolent actions of his own family. Sharing the estate is David’s daughter Bena, whose navy husband is out to sea, and her niece, Lyn, whose mother died in a mental institution. Lyn, a badly behaved adolescent, does justify David’s paranoia by confiding with Larcy about Bena,

“She needs his money, and she isn’t going to get it until dear David is dead.”

From that foundation, The Brooding House builds itself into an inheritance melodrama, with Larcy fearing that a plot is afoot to kill David for his money. She overhears incriminating snatches of conversations between Bena and a strange man on the beach, and spots her meeting with another suspicious character in the town diner. When the body of Bena’s former brother-in-law turns up at the beach, Larcy becomes convinced that evil machinations are actually underway.

Strange coming-and-goings from David’s room, incriminating newspaper clippings, and the aloof housekeeper’s use of poison, ostensibly for rat traps outside the kitchen, all add to the general atmosphere of menace at the lake house. When Larcy witnesses a strange scene at the pier one night, her own safety becomes directly involved in the events.

As much a nascent romance as a thriller, Larcy finds time to reflect on the nature of love throughout all the mysterious unfolding of events. Although suspicious of Bena’s actions, Larcy admires the relationship between her and her husband, Johnson, whose portrait commands attention in the house while its subject is out to sea. Larcy envies the apparent “fireworks” between the couple, evident in Bena’s emotional longing, but absent with her own prospective fiancée, Pete Crimmins.

Pete, the boy-next-door type, comes off as something of a heel later in the story, when Larcy turns to him for help. However, for all his alleged romantic charms, Johnson doesn’t rate much better. Bena, assessing her own slenderness, remarks,

“Johnson abhors fat women. It’s a phobia with him. He actually gets nauseous.”

ruined head

Tag Archives: Thriller