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The Wrong House
Anna Miles has hidden from the world for months. But on a storm-lashed night, a stranger arrives at her door: a mute girl with the body of an old woman in her car. Who is the girl, and what is her strange connection to Anna? And from whom has Anna been hiding all this time? Chief Inspector Robert Wilde assumes the task of investigating the elderly passenger's death, a case which turns out to be the strangest and most disturbing of his career. This edition is the first publication of this title outside the United Kingdom.
348 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2004
6 people are currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth McGregor
14 books17 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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Elizabeth McGregor is a pseudonym for Elizabeth Cooke. She also writes as Holly Fox.
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Elizabeth McGregor is a pseudonym for Elizabeth Cooke. She also writes as Holly Fox.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 15, 2021
Of all the countless authors Lume/Endeavor publishers have been digitally reviving, McGregor is definitely one of the most deserving. This is my third read by her and she continues to be very good, if uneven. The writing itself is uniformly good, it’s the plotting that occasionally gets in the way.
In this book, McGregor veers into supernatural, or at least metaphysical realm, and I’m not sure it quite works. Which is to say I’m not quite sure if it’s that element or just the overall overwriting that’s the thing at play here, the thing that makes the narrative seem ever so slightly convoluted, as if it’s contorting itself to accommodate all that the author had tried cramming into it.
The basic plot is this…a woman is found dead. An older but very vital woman is found dead in a car which has been driven to the…you guessed it…wrong address. Or is it the wrong address? Is there a connection between the girl who drove the car, a stubbornly silent nineteen year old, and the woman at the wrong address, a 28 year old hiding out from a potential stalker?
As if hiding out wasn’t enough, she’s also having an affair with the local lord of the manor, a married man with a dying father. That entire relationship gets very complicated very quickly and stays that way.
It’s all up to Inspector Wilde, a man of steady sedate manners quite contrary to his name, to sort out the entire mess.
Aside from the reliably good writing and well realized characters, I actually liked all the individual elements of this novel (cult, ley lines, mysteries), but their coming together was a somewhat muddled affair, which stretched the novel out of shape. Not all the way, just some, just so it read ever so slightly more cumbersome than it ought to have. But overall, it was an enjoyable read. Older, but not at all dated, and pleasantly British, with a nice darkly atmospheric tonality to it. It didn’t get much love here on GR judging by the other reviews and objectively it isn’t the author’s best, but for me it was worth a read.
In this book, McGregor veers into supernatural, or at least metaphysical realm, and I’m not sure it quite works. Which is to say I’m not quite sure if it’s that element or just the overall overwriting that’s the thing at play here, the thing that makes the narrative seem ever so slightly convoluted, as if it’s contorting itself to accommodate all that the author had tried cramming into it.
The basic plot is this…a woman is found dead. An older but very vital woman is found dead in a car which has been driven to the…you guessed it…wrong address. Or is it the wrong address? Is there a connection between the girl who drove the car, a stubbornly silent nineteen year old, and the woman at the wrong address, a 28 year old hiding out from a potential stalker?
As if hiding out wasn’t enough, she’s also having an affair with the local lord of the manor, a married man with a dying father. That entire relationship gets very complicated very quickly and stays that way.
It’s all up to Inspector Wilde, a man of steady sedate manners quite contrary to his name, to sort out the entire mess.
Aside from the reliably good writing and well realized characters, I actually liked all the individual elements of this novel (cult, ley lines, mysteries), but their coming together was a somewhat muddled affair, which stretched the novel out of shape. Not all the way, just some, just so it read ever so slightly more cumbersome than it ought to have. But overall, it was an enjoyable read. Older, but not at all dated, and pleasantly British, with a nice darkly atmospheric tonality to it. It didn’t get much love here on GR judging by the other reviews and objectively it isn’t the author’s best, but for me it was worth a read.
January 16, 2023
Another exciting British police procedural from Elizabeth McGregor received through MyNextRead. Chief Inspector Robert Wilde wades through a compelling mystery on the rural estate of the Aubrete family as he tries to discover the cause of the death of an elderly visitor and the connection between Anna Miles and the silent girl who accompanied the dead lady. Was the mute woman really at the wrong house, or is the Aubrete family involved in this mystery?
If you are having trouble finding this book to review, search for it under her alias, The Wrong House by Elizabeth Cooke. I love the cover on the Elizabeth Cooke edition!
Reviewed on October 31, 2021, at Goodreads and AmazonSmile. Reviewed when I found it under the alias on November 13, 2021, at Barnes&Noble, BookBub, and Kobo. Still not available at GooglePlay.
If you are having trouble finding this book to review, search for it under her alias, The Wrong House by Elizabeth Cooke. I love the cover on the Elizabeth Cooke edition!
Reviewed on October 31, 2021, at Goodreads and AmazonSmile. Reviewed when I found it under the alias on November 13, 2021, at Barnes&Noble, BookBub, and Kobo. Still not available at GooglePlay.
April 26, 2019
This story is narrated by about seven different people (possibly more, I didn't do an exact count), and there's some jumping around in time too. So it takes a while to get any idea of what's happening. Mysterious deaths, a pagan "cult" seeking to "close the gate," a renegade priest, a ghost or two -- all keep the suspense going. Towards the end events become a bit more predictable, and the conclusion is obvious, but otherwise a great read.
June 26, 2018
Eerie, strange, but somehow compulsive reading.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews