The Winter Ghosts
By Kate Mosse
Orion, $34.99
Reviewed by Nicky Pellegrino

Kate Mosse (no not the supermodel) is known for big complex doorstoppers of books like her bestseller Labyrinth and the follow-up Sepulchre. They are part of what she calls her Languedoc Trilogy and so there’s another on the way but in the meantime she’s put out this slimmer, simpler tale as a sort of palate-refreshing sorbet between courses.

This has been a year of literary hauntings but Mosse’s offering is still worth picking up even if you’ve overdosed on the paranormal. The Winter Ghosts is sweetly retro and, from its woodcut-style illustrations to its structure and tone, it’s a deliciously spooky read.
It begins in Toulouse in April 1933 with a young Englishman Freddie Watson visiting a medieval scholar with an ancient letter written in Occitan, the old language of the region.
“Bones and shadows and dust. I am the last,” it reads. “The others have slipped away into darkness.”

Freddie then reveals how he came upon the mysterious letter five years earlier when, reeling from the loss of his brother in the First World War, feeling fragile both physically and mentally, he took a road trip through the castles and ruins of the Ariege in the hope it might restore him.
He tells of crashing his car on a frozen mountain road and seeking refuge in the nearest gloomy settlement. There he attends a local celebration, la fete de Saint-Etienne, and meets a beautiful girl called Fabrissa who tells him how war has destroyed her family.

But when he wakes the next morning with a fever Fabrissa is gone and no one remembers seeing either of them at the celebration. So all alone Freddie heads into the mountains, to the place Fabrissa described fleeing to, where he uncovers a shocking history.
The Winter Ghosts has all that is needed for a good haunting: a sinister village, atmospheric weather, mountains and caves, a troubled hero. Mosse has deftly married the history of the French Pyrenees with 20th century tragedy and while this isn’t the sort of spooky story that will have you waking in the night it is beautifully done, a very thoughtful and timeless tale of spirits, loss and the evil people are capable of wreaking on one another.
Save it for a dark lonely night.

Footnote:
Nicky Pellegrino, in addition to being a succcesful author of popular fiction, (her latest The Italian Wedding was published in May this year), is also the Books Editor of the Herald on Sunday where the above review was first published on 6 December.