The Watch House, set in the Robert Westall country of The Machine-Gunners, concerns Anne, who has been dumped like a lost parcel on Prudie, her mother's old nanny…. She becomes interested in the Watch House …, where there is a museum. The past begins to catch up with the present when Anne goes to dust the display cases there, and through her two unsettled ghosts begin to work towards their final emnity against each other….
It is a fast-moving, action-packed story written in a racy style; the dialogue is sharply observed and makes the necessary genuflections towards a little bit of sex, a little bit of violence and a bit more of the occult (there are several hypnotic trances)…. [The] trouble is that too many of the characters look and sound like caricatures: there are two fathers, one Catholic and the other C of E, who are like a religious Morecambe and Wise show; there is Timmo and Pat, a Professor Branestawm with his young assistant; Anne's parents, her mother spoilt and flighty, her father big, golden hearted; and even a shaggy dog and a Gallower pony, who perform their expected roles in the story. Anne is the only character who is not caricatured: and, curiously enough, she is the least well-known of all.
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