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A Shadow on the Lens

The most Gothic, claustrophobic, wonderfully dark thriller to grip you this year

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A Shadow on the Lens

By: Sam Hurcom
Narrated by: John Telfer
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Summary

 The Postmaster looked over my shoulder. As I turned to look I saw a flicker of movement from across the street. I felt unseen eyes peer at me.
He walked away without another word. I watched as he climbed onto his bicycle and sped away down the street. I turned back and looked over my shoulder.
Someone had been watching us.

1904. Thomas Bexley, one of the first forensic photographers, is called to the sleepy and remote Welsh village of Dinas Powys, several miles down the coast from the thriving port of Cardiff. A young girl by the name of Betsan Tilny has been found murdered in the woodland - her body bound and horribly burnt. But the crime scene appears to have been staged, and worse still: the locals are reluctant to help.

As the strange case unfolds, Thomas senses a growing presence watching him, and try as he may, the villagers seem intent on keeping their secret. Then one night, in the grip of a fever, he develops the photographic plates from the crime scene in a makeshift darkroom in the cellar of his lodgings. There, he finds a face dimly visible in the photographs; a face hovering around the body of the dead girl - the face of Betsan Tilny. Crime Crime Thrillers Fiction Ghosts Gothic Historical Horror Mystery Thriller Thriller & Suspense Victorian Scary Village
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Critic reviews

A sparkling debut from a name to watch. Hurcom expertly weaves a tale of claustrophobic suspicion set in a Welsh village a few miles from Cardiff - but so inward-looking and insular you might as well be in another world. This is top notch historical crime fiction, with a dash of the supernatural. A gorgeous book and a riveting tale.
An intriguing debut.
A promising debut - gothic, claustrophobic and wonderfully dark.
Wonderfully dark and creepy...I find it hard to believe this is Hurcom's first novel. It's creepy, disturbing, eerie, dark, spine-chilling and macabre in every way that a Gothic thriller should be. It will make you uneasy - but you won't want to put it down. There is a clever and quite brilliant final twist
All stars
Most relevant
loved it, great book. the narration helped bring it to life. helped me imagine what was going on

give it a listen

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I bought this one on a bit of a whim.
It's a book that does try to answer all questions by the end but the actual summary feels a bit... rushed and like it doesn't make sense with the rest of the story. It may be that it is supposed to feel that way due to the nature of the story itself so it can leave it open to interpretation while questioning the leads belief. The main character is just hugely dislikeable with a ridiculous ego which does add to being able to question the outcome. What I will say is the twists were a bit obvious from the get go, you can already see and tell what's going on from the start and there are hints throughout which are pretty heavy handed.

very enjoyable

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I thought this book was well written (I did especially like the prose) and the mystery was well thought out. The main investigator is a bit of an arse though. Not in a fun way either. He has sympathy for the murdered party, but tends to bark orders and fly off the handle quite easily. The people around him are generally small minded or purposefully trying to disrupt the investigation, but sometimes I don't blame them. A please or a thank you when asking for food wouldn't do any harm. People tend to talk more freely to people they like.

Minor SPOILERS: Now, it doesn't make it explicit in the description, but there is a suggestion of ghosts involved. If you're into a suggestion of ghosts, this might be up your ally, but if you're hoping for them to play a more present spooky role in the story, there'll be a couple of fever induced scenes but not much more than that. The reveal at the end that the ghosts are real felt a little odd. Turns out one of them send a couple of letters to get the MC to investigate in the first place, when the ability to affect physical objects to the point of writing whole letters and getting them sent through the postal service had never been touched upon or foreshadowed in the entire story. They can show up in photos, and make creepy noises, but the letter thing felt a bit.. off. I'd have been more inclined to believe the name on the letter had been a misspelling than a roundabout summons from a ghost

Going to go into actual SPOILER territory now so be warned:
I was kind of disappointed at the culprit and his motivation. He loves to scare, torture and kill, that's it. I was kind of suspicious of him at the start because it was quite obvious he was poisening the MC. The MC got sick after being given food and drink from him and got sicker when he finished his drink later. My suspicions were lessened when the culprit convinced us he had children who were murdered, but the only reason I didn't get suspicious again after that was because nobody pointed out that he never had children.
It SHOULD have been an obvious lie that could have been easily discovered. The only reason it wasn't was because nobody bothered questioning MC about it when he went on about how hard this situation must be for the barman. Felt like the only reason the writer did not have anyone question this was because it would have immediately brought the culprit into suspicion. There was a perfect workaround for this too, since the barman did actually ask MC not to talk about it to anyone for a good reason. But the MC, not being the most tactful investigator, immediately breaks this promise. If he'd kept his word and not said anything about the barman telling him all this, then understandably there would not have been an opportunity to call out this lie.
It feels like a silly thing to harp on about but when the only reason a mystery is unsolved until the end is down to a haphazardly concealed lie, the outcome doesn't feel very satisfying or clever. Having said that though, I did enjoy the mystery up until the end there. Uncovering all these connections and motivations kept me invested, and even the dead-end leads would unwittingly shed light on earlier parts of the case.

Cool mystery, main character is a bit of a git though

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Really enjoyed the book. Twists and turns everywhere. Will admit I didn't work it out till the end

Fantastic book

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Life is too short to waste on this book!

I bought this as it had such good reviews, but the main character is a total idiot and unpleasant and none of the other characters had any depth. He blunders through the investigation in an arrogant manner,. His ability to solve the crime was greatly aided by coincidences and accident!

I found the 9 hour monologue drawn out and boring.

I really regret wasting a credit as I had such high hopes of this author. I really don't understand where all the glowing reviews came from.


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