The Small Hand (2010) by Susan Hill

The Small Hand (2010) by Susan Hill: Hill's much-earlier The Woman in Black is a fine tribute to the ghost stories of the past. This recent novella, not so much. 

Having the protagonist be a jet-setting antiquarian book finder seems like an updated nod to the great ghost-story writer M.R. James, whose collections of early 20th-century ghost stories had 'Antiquary' in the title not once but twice. 

Alas, our protagonist and narrator is boring. Very boring. And the ghostly incidents are separated by what seems like endless pages of landscape description, though The Small Hand is more novella than novel. 

I suppose two other problems with The Small Hand are its somewhat glib and superficial use of mental illness and the fact that underneath it all, this is a tale of ghostly vengeance that would barely support a six-page EC Comics story. It's all quite a disappointment -- read The Woman in Black instead for Hill at her best. Not recommended.