Uncle Paul: Welcome to the Nightmare Summer Holiday

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I was very satisfied with the ending, which I guessed, but not until I was a good way in, and other possibilities seemed to be exhausted.

Her second thriller, Uncle Paul, evokes a similar atmosphere of menace as the paranoia of her characters — and readers — combine to form a mood of increasing tension. With Jeffrey Barnard, she was co-presenter of a BBC2 documentary “Night and Day” describing diurnal and nocturnal London, broadcast 23 January 1987.Guy has been doing some Celia Fremlin reviews lately and I have been trying to get The Parasite Person. Fremlin manages the tension extremely well here, dialling it up and down a few times as the story unfolds. With two sisters full of neuroses and issues, Meg sees no other option but to go and sort out their problems. Author Celia Fremlin received an Edgar Award for her suspenseful debut novel, The Hours Before Dawn. There is an odd referral to - The Sleeping Beauty, in Fremlin's novel which happens to be a sort of peep-show on the pier - a sleeping snake!

Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without written permission from this blog’s author is prohibited.Their motivations and views on the world seemed immature and more naive than I expect from women that of that age and experience, even in that era. It’s very well constructed, and the balance between tension and domestic dramas works surprisingly well.

Finally, we have Meg and Isabel’s much older half-sister, Mildred, also on her second marriage; but despite being financially comfortable, her relationship with husband Hubert is somewhat unstable to say the least.

Yes, that cover art totally caught my eye :O) That and the fact that Waterstone’s Books of the Month can sometimes have some lovely gems. It starts with sensible Meg receiving a message from older sister (and often overwrought), Isabel about a problem with their half-sister, Mildred. Mildred betrayed him to the police, and now he is due to be released and may be seeking revenge By coincidence, Mildred is staying in the same cottage they honeymooners in all those years ago. To Fremlin’s great credit, she manages to make the reader feel sympathetic towards the fatherless Cedric by the end, despite his rather annoying habits! With the greater emphasis on personal rather than parental relationships, this is perhaps why Uncle Paul failed to resonate with me quite so much as The Hours Before Dawn.