John Harwood, The Ghost Writer

John Harwood's gothic novel The Ghost Writer centers on Gerard, a boy of 13 when the book starts, growing up in Australia, who begins a penpal correspondence with an orphaned English girl named Alice. Gerard's mother is not keen on their relationship, thinking it somehow dangerous, but that's just one in a series of strange things about her: She is very private and paranoid. Gerard's relationship with Alice is a little weird, though, and the mysteries it offers keep us reading, but this central story is interrupted repeatedly by stories within the story, gothic tales that Gerard finds here and there. They too are good reading. Still, I disliked the constant interruptions and the jarring refocusing of my attention, and it became very confusing trying to figure out what significance each story had to the central one. The book can be boring in parts—particularly the lengthy discussion of the layout of a house Gerard explores toward the end—and confusing: I'm still not completely sure I understand everything that happened. But the author also succeeds in building our dread—and I say this as someone who read the last bits with increasing discomfort in a dark house at 2:00 a.m. I don't think I'll be reading more of Harwood, because I don't really care for the genre, but that's not to say his story isn't impressive.