Kate Mosse - The Winter Ghosts

The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse review by Malcolm on show
This is the third novel I've read by Kate Mosse, the previous two were Labyrinth and Sepulchre. Also set in France this novel continues to follow Kate Mosse’s interest in the Cathars and their persecution by the French Catholics during the 13th century. The author lives some of the time in Carcassonne – in the Languedoc region and where major persecution took place. This novel commences in post WWI with Freddie Watson taking a therapeutic motoring tour in the French Pyrenees after suffering a delayed mental breakdown over the death in action of his elder brother George. He skids in a snowstorm and crashes nearly going off the mountain road, he suffers minor injuries and loses consciousness momentarily but is brought round by a beautiful ghostly voice chanting “I am the last, I am the last – the others have slipped away”.

He abandons his car and sets off to the nearest village of Nulle in the valley below – he finds a ghost town – no one is about - but he eventually comes across a guest house run by Madame Galy who is kind and hospitable – she explains that everyone is going to the Ostal later to celebrate the feast of St. Etienne and she provides him with some fancy dress and boots while his clothes dry and she draws him directions.

He sleeps late until the feast is just about to start – he dresses in the clothes he’s been given and follows the directions to the Ostal. He gets a bit lost en route but arrives eventually where he is given a friendly reception and given a seat next to a beautiful girl, Fabrissa. He looks for Madame Galy but cannot see her – all the guests are dressed in medieval costume which he assumes is just part of the fun. He talks for a long time to Fabrissa and realises it was her singing in the hills near where he crashed. They become engrossed in conversation, he falling in love as she speaks. Then armed men break into the hall and there is panic, Freddie thinks it is just show but Fabrissa leads him to a hidden passageway that takes them out into the open and high up into the hills. She tells him of the plight of her family – how they and many others were forced to escape and live in caves on the hillside until finally their persecutors came and blocked of their escape routes with rocks – all eventually perishing within. She implores him to come and find them and bring their bodies home – then she leaves him.

Next morning he is back in bed at the guest house with a fever which kindly Mm. Galy nurses him through – when he recovers he tells her he went to the Ostal – but no one saw him, his clothes showed no sign of having been worn, nor had she heard of Fabrissa or any of the other names he had come across. Nor had there been armed men and the action of WW1 had not reached them that far south. He had assumed from Fabrissa’s tale of her families entombment that she was talking about German soldiers.

It’s left to Freddie to unfold the tragedy that had occurred some 600 years previously and that he had inadvertently become part of their story – a true Ghost Story.

I like Kate Mosse’s writing, it is atmospheric of times gone by. This was quite a short novel compared to Labyrinth and Sepulchre but nevertheless a great read.

Malcolm Martland: Broadcast on Radio Scilly 107.9FM 16 December 2010