Dr. Frank Tallis is a writer and clinical psychologist. He has held lecturing posts in clinical psychology and neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry and King's College, London. He has written self help manuals (How to Stop Worrying, Understanding Obsessions and Compulsions) non-fiction for the general reader (Changing Minds, Hidden Minds, Love Sick), academic text books and over thirty academic papers in international journals. Frank Tallis' novels are: KILLING TIME (Penguin), SENSING OTHERS (Penguin), MORTAL MISCHIEF (Arrow), VIENNA BLOOD (Arrow), FATAL LIES (Arrow), and DARKNESS RISING (Arrow). The fifth volume of the Liebermann Papers, DEADLY COMMUNION, will be published in 2010. In 1999 he received a Writers' Award from the Arts Council of Great Britain and in 2000 he won the New London Writers' Award (London Arts Board). In 2005 MORTAL MISCHIEF was shortlisted for the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award.
I really liked this book. I listened to it on audio and Gildart Jackson did a fantastic job narrating it.
A lot of people seem to dislike how vague and unresolved the ending is, but I think it did an excellent job of giving us just enough information to speculate but holds back enough information to create a sense of creepy unease. One example I associate with this is the movie The Shining. The Shining could have been just another "haunted house" movie with a bunch of exposition and a clear backstory, but one of the reasons it's stuck in people's heads for all this time is because it straddled the line between mystery and certainty. We were given just enough information about the Overlook Hotel to create a narrative in our minds, but not enough information to make that narrative concrete. It was an "uncanny valley" that created a sense of unease in the audience. I'm not saying The Voices was as successful as The Shining at creating this effect, but I think I get what the author was trying to do, and I appreciate that. I think it's a very difficult effect to pull off, and I think The Voices does a decent job of it, but falls short in a lot of areas.
**Spoilers here on out***
When I finish a book I sometimes like to look online to see what other people are saying about it. This book doesn't seem to be as popular online as others, so I thought I'd share my own thoughts about the story here.
I think the book is largely about failing to communicate or deal with problems. Maybe it's just because I'm American, but it seemed to me like the author was criticizing the very British tendency to simply ignore uncomfortable truths and to keep that "stiff upper lip." The characters in this book were given every opportunity to dig themselves out of their respective situations, and every time they refused to do so either out of pride or fear of opening up. The presence of supernatural forces even seems to be secondary to this theme of bottling up your problems instead of dealing with them. Every time the characters make the decision to ignore the problem, the entity grows stronger, eventually leading to the abduction of Faye and the death of Christopher.
All Christopher had to do was listen to his wife about her depression and talk to her about the rift that had formed between them. Instead he kept his feelings bottled up until they eventually exploded out in an incoherent mess and then he proceeded to act as if it never happened. He avoided every opportunity to talk to his wife and instead preferred the "healing power of sex" and then was disappointed when the sex was cold and unfeeling and, obviously, didn't magically fix all his problems. Once again, instead of suffering the discomfort of facing his problems, he instead turned to someone else for sex. He even blocked communication between his wife and the outside world. During Faye's disappearance, Sue literally called their house with vital information that might save them, something that usually signals a turning point in any conventional story, and Christopher forbids her from talking to Laura and hangs up. We never even get to learn what Sue knew (which, admittedly, would have been nice to have closure for. The author could have communicated what the message was to the reader without it being revealed to the main characters.) Christopher was definitely the worst perpetrator of this, and all his bad decisions eventually killed him.
Simon refused to face the fact that he was gay and that his wife was trapped in an unhappy marriage with a man who wasn't romantically interested in her. He wasn't brave enough to make uncomfortable decisions and instead led his wife to seek intimacy elsewhere, eventually leading to the affair with Christopher. (Though, to be fair, it was extremely dangerous to be gay in 1970's Britain. Simon confessing he was gay would have taken a lot more risk than any of the easy solutions the other characters faced. I don't think the other decisions had as much weight as this one, which was either a misstep by the author or another way for him to criticize British society.) He also chose his pride over his friend when he refused to tell the producer about Christopher's work even though Christopher would have been a perfect fit and this was exactly the break he was looking for. If Simon had chosen to speak up instead of stay silent, many of the books events may have never happened.
Amanda was not exactly a victim in this story either. The book isn't clear on whether Amanda knew about Simon being gay, but it is clear that they were both aware that something was wrong in their relationship and both chose to ignore it. She made decisions to find outlets elsewhere and ultimately betrayed her husband and her best friend in order to do it. The final nail in the coffin was when Amanda and Simon made excuses not to contact Christopher and Laura during Faye's disappearance. I found myself yelling at the audiobook in my car when, after all the hell Christopher and Laura had been through and all the bad decisions that led to this point, Simon and Amanda still abandoned them instead of simply dealing with unpleasant feelings.
I think the only innocent victims in this story are Laura and Faye. There were a few attempts made by Laura to communicate. She tried talking to her doctor, a psychotherapist, Simon, her husband, the police, most of whom dismissed her worries or outright ignored her. Although not perfect, she seemed to be the only main character who made any effort to acknowledge that something was wrong, though she too frequently chose civility over action. The only one who listened was Sue, though Laura pushed her away at first. It would have been nice to have more interactions between Laura and Sue. Sue seemed to pop up out of nowhere and appeared to offer answers only to disappear in the middle of the narrative for no reason. That felt like a neglected story arc.
As for the ending, I admit that it was successful in being creepy, but wasn't an ending that made sense for the story arc as a whole. Stories don't have to have a happy ending every time, but I do believe that the ending has to make sense. The ending has to be some sort of culmination for the main character's arcs. It seems like none of the characters ever changed or learned. For one, I think having the body of a dead and tortured infant is, even for horror fans, a bit much. I think the ending could have done without that detail and instead just have the contractors discover the empty hidden room as one last spooky detail. It would have made Faye's fate more uncertain and not quite so gruesome. It could be hinted that Faye and the spirit of her father are trapped somewhere in an otherworldly plain, a sort of spirit world version of the chains room, which is still a creepy and a negative ending, just without child corpses! It just seemed in bad taste.
Although I could see the argument being made that this was meant as a sort of cautionary tale and so therefore the characters aren't meant to be redeemed but are meant to be punished as an example, I would have preferred a little bit of triumph. I was expecting Christopher's death to be the turning point for his character. He couldn't save himself or his wife because of all his selfish decisions, but he could do one final selfless thing and use his newfound situation in the spirit world to find Faye and somehow rescue her. I imagined it would be a bit like the first Insidious movie or Poltergeist where a living being is trapped in the world of the dead and needs to be rescued. Christopher still stays dead and perhaps Laura still goes to jail, but Faye could "mysteriously" reappear, unchanged and unharmed, on the front steps of the house and be found by a neighbor. For all the characters in the story, it could remain a mystery where she went or how she got there, but it could be subtly hinted to the reader that Christopher managed to make it happen from beyond the grave. It would still be a bittersweet ending, and one where there is a more satisfying character arc for at least one character.
As for the house's history, I think the author did a decent job of providing little clues. We know that a magician lived in the house at some point, and that he never managed to get famous and that he hired street urchins to participate in his act. It is heavily implied that uncertain fates befell some of these street children and that the Magician enjoyed making children "disappear." Christopher also discovered some children's toys along with the magic tricks in his attic, which, with the poem about toys that Laura hears on the baby monitor, suggests that the Magician maybe lured children with toys. The reveal at the end of the book that there really is a hidden room filled with chains and shackles suggests that the Magician kidnapped and imprisoned children on his property. The fates of those children or what he did in that room is left uncertain. Later in the story it is revealed that the Magician didn't die per say, but simply disappeared one day and was never found. In that same chapter a character mentions that the Magician had a ominous-sounding book of "magic tricks" that he stole from another magician that was never recovered. These clues, along with the spooky chants Christopher hears on his tapes, seem to imply that the Magician had a book of dark magic that he used to enter the spirit world. The reason for the Magician doing this is left up to the reader. It could be to gain the powers of a ghost, to "live" forever, or just because he wanted to wield real magic and this was the consequence of his hubris. Either way, the Magician seemed to be very interested in children, both in life and death, and not for very good reasons. It's implied many times in the book that Laura can see and feel things other people cannot. If Laura has special powers (not unlike the "shine" in Stephen King's books) it could be that Faye has inherited those powers and is therefore special to the Magician. It could be that other children the Magician may have lured had this gift as well. Though it is never really clear what the Magician needs Faye for, it definitely isn't good. As for the other voices on the tapes, I assumed that they were just the confused whisperings of the dead reliving moments in their lives. None of them seemed quite as lucid or aware as the Magician, save for one woman who seems to warn Christopher not to listen to the "speech of shadows."
I started out really enjoying this book but about half way through I got Sick of it and of Chris, but then the ending wasn't bad and the writing is well done I think so, 3.5 stars, tentative 4 cause I mean I did finish it but maybe 3 cause of poor Faye
If you LOVE a scary and very creepy ghost story that is scary.....read or 'Listen to' "The Voices" by Tallis!!
This was my first outing with this author, and let me tell you; it will NOT be my last! I loved, LOVED this scary and very gruesome and creepy ghost story.
It is 1976 and movie composer Christopher Norton and his wife Laura and their infant daughter Faye, movie into their dream Victorian house in the United Kingdom. Little do they know that what they are up against is something that neither of them could have EVER imagined!!! This is a ghost story unlike any other that you will read.......it is scary, VERY creepy and disturbingly gruesome and with an ending that will either make you squirm, or cry out of being scared. When Laura asks Christopher on the 2nd night, if he saw anything outside the window, she lies and tells him 'it must have been nothing'....but she KNOWS she saw a very scary and creepy looking man in very different style of clothes. As the week goes by she starts seeing and hearing weird noises, and then the voices come, and the disappearance of their little daughter Faye. And did I forget to tell you.......watch out for 'the Magician!'. What starts is the beginning of one of the best 'haunted house/ghost stories' that I have read in a long time. This book was originally published in 2014 and I cannot believe that I had never heard of it or ever read it.
I listened to the audiobook and it was narrated SO WELL, that the narrators voices added so much to this gruesomeness and horror of this story. This book has one of the most disturbingly creepy last pages of a horror story. HIGHLY recommended. I will most defintely look for more by Tallis.
WARNINGs: Extreme and disturbing scenes involving a child.
Honestly, I felt the mmc was insufferable, he's self-centered, egotistical, and willfully ignorant to the feelings of those around him; his actions and opinions are so distasteful that I felt no pity for him and his plight.
His wife, the fmc, while dealing with post-partum depression and some severe body image issues, genuinely refused to communicate with anyone, even those who offered her help. While you can't help but to feel bad for her in the end, I do wish she had more of a spine and took less crap from those around her; especially since, the author spent so much time talking about how she was a strong willed young woman only to dumb her down and pacify her and equating it to "hormones" and motherhood. Truly, it was distasteful.
Additionally, this story is full of so much music score geek talk that you genuinely have to be interested or it becomes dull. And if all of that isn't enough to per/dissuade you from reading let it be known that there is very little spooky stuff; in a book about hearing mysterious voices, I find it laughable that the character, who the author spends most of the story following, isn't the slightest bit alarmed about them. You get a hint of mystery and a dark backstory behind them, but it's never fleshed out and instead of leaving me wanting more it just irritated me.
I really felt like I wasted 6 hours reading this, because there's genuinely nothing about this book that I found worthwhile; the writing is wordy, the story is mediocre, and the characters just plain suck. It truly is one of those situations where I'm just glad it's over and I can move on.
This is set so convincingly in the 70s that I was surprised to learn it came out in 2014. It was a familiar enough haunted house story that listening felt almost cozy. While the characters were all given their complications, I didn't like anyone but the wife, Laura, and frequently wished the house would just hurry up and swallow her husband. The ending felt a tiny bit under-developed, the explanations unclear after such a long build up. Could make a solid horror film, though.
The good: Some pretty creepy ideas; well-written: characters mostly feel like real people (although a bit slow to react sometimes).
The less-good: Didn't love the audiobook narrator; rather slow and spends an awful lot of time on the avant-garde music industry of the 1970s; an interminable focus on the sexual dissatisfaction of married men.
Horror stories often suffer from over-explaining the monsters, but I do wish the book had delved a *bit* more into the voices and what they experienced.
I though the story itself was good. But, I feel like I need more of a closer in the end. I want to find out what happen. The stories behind the voices and etc...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
I enjoyed this book, though I have a soft spot for horror as told through audio. I also thought it was interesting how it wove in the collapse of a marriage, and how the two events (the end of the marriage and the paranormal event) dovetailed into an eventual denouement.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.