The Travelling Bag review: Susan Hill's latest eerie ghost stories
The Travelling Bag and Other Ghostly Stories
Susan Hill
Profile, $24.99
Starting with The Woman in Black, Susan Hill has become the queen of the ghost story. The Travelling Bag collects four new tales of the uncanny. The macabre title story concerns a respected doctor whose assistant steals his life's work, becoming feted as his employer languishes on a sick-bed. Learning of this betrayal, the doctor plots a horrific revenge. Another story weds domestic drama to wicked stepmother tropes and spectres from the other side. In yet another, odd events accompany a new arrival at an office building, behind which lies a past that can't stay buried. Finally, there's a buddy story that transforms into a melancholy, and mysterious, vanishing. It isn't all as creepy and assured as Hill at her best, but the author's eerie imagination and storytelling power make her better than most.
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