Dolly - Susan Hill

Susan Hill's 2012 sinister offering had been staring me down in Waterstones for a couple of years, tempting me back into the world of the modern novel. Due to Penguin Classic commitments at the time, I ignored the beckoning and made a mental note to pick it up on a future occasion. And how did Dolly fare? Better than The Small Hand, but inferior to her flagship masterpiece. It begs the question, will The Woman in Black ever be trumped? Edward Cayley revisits a lonely, unspecified location in the English fens where he spent a childhood summer with his reclusive Aunt Kestrel and spoilt brat cousin, Leonora. The visit reawakens long dormant memories of a china doll rejected by the spiteful girl, a doll he would hear crying and rustling in its cardboard box at night. What follows are the consequences of ingratitude and bad behaviour.

It is a classic return of the repressed tale with iconic gothic imagery: a creepy toy, old house, desolate landscape and the much-beloved, good old family curse. Tired, uninspired ground indeed, but not without merit. The pace of the novella is effective, briskly drawing the reader along on a familiar though tantalising track. Suspense is handled efficiently and the tension mounts up satisfactorily, yet without ruining the ending, I once again found it too predictable. Drama students and teenagers will enjoy picking out the ham-fisted cautionary on vanity whilst fans of M. R. James will enjoy the rugged setting. There are strong Dorian Gray overtones and just about everything else you'd expect from the worn-out genre. It can be easily read in one sitting and there are certainly worse books to waste an evening on, even if the childrens' unnaturally mature dialogue can be a bit much to swallow.

Rating: 3/5