Product Description

A mysterious depiction of masked revellers at the Venice carnival hangs in the college rooms of Oliver's old professor in Cambridge. On this cold winter's night, its eerie secret is revealed by the ageing don. The dark art of the Venetian scene, instead of imitating life, has the power to entrap it. To stare into the painting is to play dangerously with the unseen demons it hides, and become the victim of its macabre beauty...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5434 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 145 pages

Synopsis
A mysterious depiction of masked revellers at the Venice carnival hangs in the college rooms of Oliver's old professor in Cambridge. On this cold winter's night, its eerie secret is revealed by the ageing don. The dark art of the Venetian scene, instead of imitating life, has the power to entrap it. To stare into the painting is to play dangerously with the unseen demons it hides, and become the victim of its macabre beauty...

About the Author
Susan Hill has been a prolific writer since 1963. She was a presenter of BBC Radio 4's Bookshelf. She has won the Somerset Maugham Award (for I'm the King of the Castle); the Whitbread Novel Award and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Her sequel to Rebecca, Mrs de Winter, was a big bestseller and her short story The Woman in Black was adapted to the stage and has been running in the West end for 18 years. She is the author of a highly successful crime series published by Chatto & Windus. Bloomsbury will be publishing her latest children's story in 2008.

Customer Reviews

Great start but then...
Not as good as the "Woman in Black". It starts (very) well but the plot loses direction at the middle and the becomes downright silly in the end. A good ghost story requires suspension of disbelief. It is an indictement of the plot that the disbelief occurs at the final actions of the protagonists rather than the manifestation of the supernatural.

A spooky little novella
I agree with other reviewers that this book was not up to the standard of The Woman in Black but it is still well worth a read.
It is well written and atmospheric; set in the ancient college rooms of Cambridge, Venice on a dark night and a crumbling Victorian mansion.
The characters are well formed for such a brief novella and the art work that the story revolves around is suitably chilling.
And there is a clever twist at the end of the tale.

I admire this genre of appropriately short stories, not padded out with unnecessary detail.

Elegant but not her best
I am a great admirer of Susan Hill's work, and this short novella is as stylishly written as her other work; sadly, though, it doesn't fully measure up to her great chiller "The Woman in Black", or indeed its splendid companion "The Mist in the Mirror". This new story has many elements in common with the earlier works, but its creepy atmosphere isn't sustained so expertly. To be honest, "Man in the Picture" feels a little re-heated, notwithstanding the author's characteristically excellent writing.