The Winter Ghosts

There's no doubt that Kate Mosse can spin a good yarn. Labyrinth and Sepulchre were two of my favourite recent reads, so I was delighted to spot The Winter Ghosts in my local library. (Even though it's August!) I didn't read the jacket blurb, trusting to past experience that I would enjoy the book, so I was slightly disappointed to realise from page one that it's set in exactly the same area as the previous novels.

The set-up is different. Freddie Watson has been sent to the South of France in 1933, to recuperate after a serious illness. He's still obsessed with the death of his elder brother George on the eve of the Battle of the Somme. It soon becomes clear that Freddie is sick in mind as well as body.

In a foolhardy attempt to make his way through the Pyrenees in an unreliable car he almost veers off the road and has to find help in an isolated village with a strange atmosphere. The locals make him welcome, and even invite him to a local festival, where he meets a beautiful woman called Fabrissa. As the evening passes and the wine flows he finds himself talking about his fears and loss for the first time. She tells him a tale of how her family had suffered at the hands of soldiers and the pair talk all night.

The morning after, quite predictably I'm afraid, Freddie's back at the boarding house and nobody has any memory of his being at the fete. No-one has heard of Fabrissa or any of the other people he met at the party. His coat still hangs on the hall stand and his boots are not even wet, in spite of the winter snow.

By that time it's clear to the reader that Fabrissa is one of the Winter Ghosts of the title and yes, fancy that, she probably wasn't talking about the same war that triggered Freddie's mental health problems.  I won't spoil the tale for anyone who plans to read it, but if you've read Kate Mosse's other works you'll have worked out for yourself who Fabrissa is.

Confession time - I knew nothing of the relevant period of history before I read Labyrinth, and I learned a lot from it and Sepulchre, but The Winter Ghosts is really a book too far. Time for a new research topic Ms Mosse. You write excellent and engaging prose. Your books truly are gripping, page turners, but it would have been possible to tell the same tale in reference to a different era. Man's inhumanity to man is not limited to 14th century France.

The original version of The Winter Ghosts was published as The Cave in 2009, as part of the Quick Reads initiative, aimed at young adults. Its length and simplicity show through in the later book. If you're already familiar with Mosse's work you know what to expect. If you haven't read Labyrinth and Sepulchre this might be a good place to start, then move on to the meatier works to find out more about the topic.