I've mostly enjoyed the three series installments I've read, but fatigue may be setting in. Ross's fourth entry, The Mystery of Collinwood, arrived via Paperback Library in 1968. The book has been republished since then in modern trade and as an audiobook.
In this novel, Victoria Winters and her employers, Roger and Elizabeth, are greeted by a new guest who has arrived at the family's enormous mansion. The man calls himself Professor Mark Veno, and he introduces his daughter, Linda, to Victoria. Oddly, Victoria discovers that Veno is actually Roger and Elizabeth's brother Mark Collins, a sort of estranged brother who still has ownership in the family estate. He arrives every few years and makes himself at home despite the family's reluctance to accept his vaudeville lifestyle. Victoria accepts Linda's friendship, yet becomes weary of the girl's longing to marry Ernest. In prior novels, Victoria and Ernest have developed a loving relationship that is strained by Ernest's travel schedule. He is a musician in Europe and remains absent from Victoria's life the majority of the time. However, in Europe, Ernest and Linda have become fond of each other.
Mark Collins introduces Victoria to an old seaside legend concerning the Phantom Mariner, an avenging dead sailor that returns to the mansion searching for his lost love (or something). Victoria soon finds herself afraid of this Phantom Mariner after nearly dying in various accidents around the house. That is where this book dies. It may also be where my respect for Ross as a writer declines.
Ross authored over 350 novels and nearly 600 short stories. I've read a lot of them and have typically always enjoyed his writing. However, I've read rumblings online that Ross copied entire sections of his own books and repurposed them in other novels. I've often kept an eye out for recycling and may have found an example of this.
In Ross's 1966 novel Phantom Manor (the title coincidentally similar to “Phantom Mariner”), there's a chapter where the main character is nearly killed in the mansion's wine cellar by a figure she can't identify. In this novel, Victoria experiences the same thing in the wine cellar – an attack by a figure she can't identify. But wait...there's more!
This entire scene happens to Victoria in the first Dark Shadows book, an attack in the cellar. Coincidentally, that novel was published the same year that Phantom Manor was published - 1966. He's effectively used the same scene in at least three books. To add lime juice to the wound, Ross doesn't even acknowledge that Victoria was attacked in the wine cellar previously. He just sends her down there in this book as if the whole thing is completely safe. If she had been attacked by an unseen assailant in the wine cellar before, why would she go there again? It is senseless.
Ross uses all of the familiar tropes in this book that he uses in all of the Dark Shadows books thus far. You can trade out the Phantom Mariner for a dead lover (Dark Shadows #1), a dead woman who jumped from a cliff (Dark Shadows #2), or another dead lover (Dark Shadows #3). You can trade the Phantom Mariner for a rumored ghost haunting in Secret of Mallet Castle, a suspicious, deadly husband in Dark of the Moon, or the hooded, weird neighbor in Dark Legend. All of these books feature the vulnerable beauty being attacked through 180 pages by a mythical villain haunting the house and family.
The question I ask myself is, why continue to read these books? Why read Ross? I honestly don't have an answer other than I just enjoy finding myself in a large rural mansion for a few hours. The winding stairways, the endless halls, and the multitude of mysterious rooms and basements are pure escapism. I realize Ross is a hack and made a living rewriting the same book. Many of these gothic suspense and romance writers did the same thing. But, there's just something about that mansion, isn't there?
The Mystery of Collinwood may be the worst of the Dark Shadows books so far. The plot is recycled nonsense with the obligatory costume ball, mysterious guests, and Victoria's bafflement at who could be attacking her. To add insult to injury, Roger and Elizabeth still question Victoria's sanity even after all of these attacks have proven to be a legitimate killer in the house. One would think they would just take her word for it.
One or two more books to get through before the vampire arrives. I'll be tired and worn out by the time he pops the fangs and gets to business.
Get The Mystery of Collinwood HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment