A tiny, beautifully put together little ghost story with the bombast of neither the play nor the movie, but full of horrifying but unshowy touches.

The novel (or rather novella) follows Arthur Cripps, now in middle age, as he enjoys Christmas Eve with his family of second wife and step-children. The children begin to tell ghost stories, and when he is asked if he has any to contribute, he makes his excuses and runs out into the snow.

By turns we learn that he does indeed have a ghost story, and he resolves to write it down, for no-one to see until after his death. The Woman in Black is this story.

The framing device here works very well - we see straight away that the Arthur of the present is very different from the Arthur of the past, and his description of his Harker-esque journey to an unnamed county on legal business is compelling. In fact, all of the writing on atmosphere, from unpredictable sea "frets" to beautiful, silent sunny days is exemplary and makes a major contribution to how the book works. The Woman herself, a malevolent but tragic creature, appears out of the shadows of such quiet moments, and her curse on the village, which translated on the screen recently as horror grand guignol is huge and yet effectively silent and cruel in the book, as none of the afflicted will speak directly about it.

It's all so bitter and done so wonderfully well. And I loved the dog. Though I wouldn't recommend reading this late at night.