THE DEAD HOUSE

Simon Mattacks is a gifted narrator, and he does all an actor can to hold the listener's attention with this patchy ghost story. Maggie, a gifted young artist, escapes to an isolated, abandoned cottage on the Irish coast after a violent relationship comes to an end. The story is told from the point of view of Mike, the art dealer who discovered her and continues to support her. Mattacks narrates so perceptively and tenderly that he brings alive the fretting and bewildered Mike. There are some genuinely eerie moments and some harrowing detail from the Irish famine, but the story doesn't really hang together, and the twist at the end is too contrived. C.A.T. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: JUNE 2018]