The Wrong House

by Elizabeth McGregor

‘There is an engaging balance of menace and emotional mayhem. In fact it is damned thrilling’ – Glasgow Herald Fleeing from some desperate threat, Anna Miles arrived amid the rural calm of Aubrete like a person without a past. And here, for months, she has hidden from the world. But now, on a storm-lashed night, a stranger arrives at Anna’s door – a girl she does not know, with the body of an old woman in her car. But the mysterious young visitor steadfastly refuses to speak or explain what happened. As the police try to unravel the silent girl’s history, it seems that there is a link to Anna Miles after all, despite her persistent denials. That link is Ben McGovern – a man who has successfully traced and followed them both, bringing the past unbearably close. Chief Inspector Robert Wilde assumes the task of investigating the elderly passenger’s suspicious death. But how can he get the girl to talk? What terrible history do she and Anna share? And is the nearby Aubrete estate the focus for something much darker and more dangerous than anything he has ever investigated before? Praise for Elizabeth McGregor ‘Compulsive and claustrophobic … the writing embroiled me … and, like a pit-bull terrier, refused to let go. Just when it seemed the suspense had peaked, McGregor turned the ratchet another notch and forced me to read on … made me turn pages with an eagerness that defied sleep’ – Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News ‘Without doubt the most unputdownable psychological thriller I have come across for a long time’ - The Lady Elizabeth McGregor has had over a hundred stories and serials published in the UK and overseas, and has worked for magazines, radio and TV. Her previous novel, Second Sight, was also published by Macmillan and Pan. The author lives in Dorset.

373 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2004

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Bonnye Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Rita Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Julia Ibbotson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eerie, strange, but somehow compulsive reading.