Review: The Small Hand by Susan Hill

The Woman in Black is one of my favourite books and it appears to be universally popular, spawning not only a long-running stage production but also a new film, due to star Harry Potter poppet, Daniel Radcliffe.

I suppose the trouble with having a massively successful and respected hit is that you are always going to spend the rest of your life trying to repeat it. Hill is a hugely gifted writer and all of her books that I have read have entertained me greatly, so I do not suggest for a moment that they are not good reads in their own right. But the ghost story is a genre in which it is notoriously hard to hit the right buttons and when you have pulled off a near perfect execution once, it might not be easy to remember the combination a second time.

Two of Hill's other books, The Man in the Picture and The Mist in the Mirror, are decent enough ghost stories but I found they completely lacked the chill factor that The Woman in Black brings in bucketloads. So I came to The Small Hand with only middling expectations.

Beautifully bound in an embossed jacket, this book is a very attractive addition to any collection and I am a sucker for a book that looks and feels divine. Funnily enough though, the lovely cover does add something not only to the reading experience, but to the story itself. This very short novel follows the adventure of Adam Snow, a dealer in antiquarian books and the luxurious feel of the cover and the stylish font seem to add credence to his world, as if the reader might have picked up one of Snow's own treasures.

Stumbling across a derelict house in deepest Sussex one day, Snow explores the overgrown garden and is considerably alarmed when he feels the unmistakeable sensation of a small child's hand softly gripping his own. The experience haunts him and understandably makes him want to find out more about the garden's ghostly resident. But as time goes on, the small hand becomes less gentle and appears to reveal a malevolent intent.

Set in the present day, The Small Hand nevertheless manages to convey the sense of timelessness and 'other worldliness' at which Hill excels. I suppose not all ghost stories have to be terrifying to succeed and there is certainly a disconcerting atmosphere to the book. But unfortunately I just didn't find it scary. It just didn't touch those magic buttons that leave you unsettled, creeped out or revisited by certain images when you are alone at night.

For me, the mark of a great ghost story is that at some point in the future, you kind of wish you hadn't read it. And sadly The Small Hand leaves me untroubled.