Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder III: The House Among the Laurels | review by Rafe McGregor

The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost-Finder by William Hope Hodgson

Wordsworth Editions, paperback, £4.99, July 2006, ISBN 9781840225297

This is a somewhat disappointing second case and not because it is the first to have a natural rather than supernatural dénouement. The apparent haunting is of the hall of Gannington Manor, which is near the fictional village of Korunton, in the West of Ireland, and Hodgson’s attempts to reproduce the local dialect are amateurish, falling flat. There is also a slight variation in Carnacki’s yarn-spinning in that the first part describes the investigations of his friend, Wentworth, on inheriting the manor house so that what one reads is Dodgson’s report of Carnacki’s report of the sequence of events that happened to Wentworth, who seems very far-removed indeed. There have been two deaths in the hall in seven years and Wentworth does what Carnacki usually does, spends the night in the chamber, albeit with a host of locals and a big bull mastiff. When blood drips from the ceiling and the dog is killed (animal companions seem to have a tough time of it in Carnacki’s adventures), all forty-odd men flee the scene and Wentworth calls for Carnacki’s expertise. The ‘ab-human’ is used for the second time and the distinction between human and ab-human will form the foundation of the worldview embedded in the Carnacki oeuvre. Manuscripts, signs, and rituals are deployed, but, as always, Carnacki comes equipped with his revolver, camera, and flashlight. Two more dogs fare no better than the first and the case is solved by means of the camera, which exposes the device being used to create the haunting. There is a reference to another of Carnacki’s investigations, the “Steeple Monster case”.