The Girl on the Landing

By: Paul Torday

Narrated by: David Monteath, Clare Wille

Length: 9 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

From the best-selling author of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, a ghost story, a psychological thriller and a tale of love rediscovered.

Elizabeth has been married to Michael for ten years. She has adjusted to a fairly monotonous routine with her wealthy, decent but boring husband. Part of this routine involves occasional visits to Beinn Caorrun, the dank and gloomy house in a Scottish glen that Michael inherited. There are memories there that Michael will not share with her.

But then Michael begins to change. It starts when he thinks he sees, in a picture, the figure of a girl on a landing. As he changes, life becomes so much more fun and Elizabeth sees glimpses of a man she can fall in love with at last. But who - or what - is changing Michael....

©2009 Paul Torday (P)2013 Orion Publishing Group

Simply excellent

I read this as a print book first and couldn't put it down. The people I was on holiday with thought I was very rude. This audiobook is excellent too. The story is gripping and the narration very good. It's quite spooky and disturbing.

How sad that Paul Torday died recently and not very old - I would have hoped for more books from him.

a fallen angel of sorts

Apparitions and mental conditions, inventions and creations of the mind

This story is about letting go, returning to a more wild state, a place before nations and nationalities a place where legends, sensual, sexual passions and the true savage live, a place where you follow your instincts till you howl at the moon. Commune with the goddess and hunt animal all animals, till you disappear into the primordial forest in your mind.

A marriage of convenience between two strangers, and old fashion life where modernity is intruding into the set British ways of doing things, old gentleman's clubs, fishing trips, boring social dinners, a boring boring life, where Michael unbenounced to everyone has began a plan of escape, a transformation into a past where there were only primordial men and forests. The first glimmer is a girl in a painting, followed by her ever growing reality that awakens in him a surprising Michael, that sparks passion in his wife, even love, controversy in social circles and a dislocation of reality, that seeps like blood into every cranny of their lives.

Very well written, full of atmosphere and contradictory feelings for the reader, the characters are well written and the settings feel real and full of life. Avery different thriller that is not about capture but scape and there is where this book will have some detractors, it is not conclusive but open ended and even allegorical in its ending like the feelings it awakens in Michael; that like his namesake is a fallen angel of sorts.

Both readers are very good and make a good story better.

Gripped from start to finish

The story centres on a couple who are in a dull but servicable marriage. Michael spends his time in his gentleman's club mixing with a bunch of buffoons and with few interests apart from shooting and fishing. These are not shared by Elizabeth, his brittle wife who is in a stressful job and resentful of having to socialise with Michael's friends. They have put up with eachother for ten years but appear to be on the brink of separation. Then things mysteriously change when they take a trip to Ireland and Michael sees a ghostly figure in a painting. Elizabeth begins to see her husband in a completely new light and realises he is completely different from the man she thought he was.

This is a truly original spooky tale weaving in themes of racism, mental illness, national identity and love within a marriage in ways I did not expect. I loved the characters and really cared about what happened to them. The story is unpredictable and densely atmospheric and it is brilliantly read by the narrators.

If you are looking for a fresh take on the ghost story genre, then I thoroughly recommend this book to you.

Eerie and haunting

I thought this was an enjoyable psychological thriller, eerie and haunting rather than being bogged down with police procedures . It's a page turner and easy listening too. Unusual.

Couldn't put it down!

I loved this audio book and found it hard to pause. The narrators were perfect. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys a story with what I would consider a supernatural theme

Menacing

Any additional comments?

Fully expected not to enjoy this book. It is peppered with man-splaining pompous gentlemen's club members and the social circles, wealth and mores described are completely out of my range of experience. Yet the skill of the author is such that all that stuff is unimportant and you find yourself connecting with the human element of the characters. It was mesmerising listening to Michael and Elizabeth's story unfold, with the constant menace of the paranormal (and/or insanity). I found myself identifying with many of their struggles and caring deeply about the outcome of increasingly menacing influences in their lives. What was particularly powerful for me was the complete absence of heavy handed tricks usually present in stories like this. The constant low-key sense of threat and turbulence beneath polite socially acceptable behaviour had a far bigger impact and I found myself quite tense and nervy as I listened to the story develop.

The best bit of Tosh I have heard recently.

This was delightful. For the first half an hour I almost gave up but, the reading was so very good, I held my course. Loved it!

I persevered but wished I hadn't bothered

I trudged my way through this book willing it to get better and provide me with some pay back on the amount of time invested but sadly that didn't happen for me. Sorry!

I'm sure lots of other readers/listeners may have enjoyed it but I found the whole thing so fantastical and unlikely and, in the end, tedious.

Plodding story, weirdly narrated

What did you like best about The Girl on the Landing? What did you like least?

The plot would have been good, if it had been condensed massively. As it stands, it's very very slow to get to the end, which you can see coming a mile away, and there are no surprises. Far too much irrelevant and uninteresting detail is repeated and revisited. Almost unbearable. I would have stopped if i didn't hate giving up on books.

If you’ve listened to books by Paul Torday before, how does this one compare?

My first.

What didn’t you like about David Monteath and Clare Wille ’s performance?

Compared with all other audible books i've listened to, both performances seemed stilted and unenthusiastic. As though they found the book as dull as i did... Clare Wille was good at doing other characters (closely basing the protagonist's mother on Miranda's mother!)

Do you think The Girl on the Landing needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

hell no!

Any additional comments?

I have abandoned one or two audiobooks early on. This one had enough momentum to get me hooked in, but then disappointed all the rest of the way through.

Gripping and quite terrifying

A really unusual story - awful and terrible in the best possible way. Oliver Sacks meets Stephen King. Desperately sad slow revelations are overlaid with a sense of dread and gothic horror. Seems to revel in drawing painfully awkward. Irritating, dull characters thus enhancing contrast with the mysterious Mikey. A rare and unforgettable story.