Uncle Paul: Welcome to the Nightmare Summer Holiday

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Fremlin is always wonderful for her acute observations and for the social history embedded in her books and, for the first half, the creepy element felt like an add on to me that rather distracted from all the delights of awkward children (Cedric, the boy who knows everything; Peter and 'sharkie' who lives under the caravan steps), squabbling with fellow guests at a nearby hotel over when to light a fire, and the inevitable colonel who wants to run everything.

In contrast to the suburban unease of The Hours Before Dawn, Fremlin's second novel takes these dysfunctional families out of their natural habitat. Isabel has married Phillip in some haste and seems to know little about him and Meg is the same, her fancy man, Freddy is fun to be with, but she has no clue who "his people" are. How the thriller is resolved is as questionable as any crime novel but I thought the atmosphere, scene-setting, and characters well done. In a spooky coincidence - or is it - said cottage turns out to be the same one that Mildred rented during a holiday fifteen years before, her ill-fated honeymoon to the titular Paul, a man who was shortly afterwards arrested for the attempted murder of his first wife.I can understand perhaps, that Isabel and Mildred are stereotypes of house-wifey, no career, no degree, middle-class women, who probably got on Fremlin's nerves; but really where is this going? It’s quite a short book and although not that much happens along the way I found myself really wanting to know what happens but it’s not till towards the end of the book does the pace quicken and everything falls into place.

The characterisation is sublime, from the worrying sister Isabel to Cedric, who is not a main character. So, with the hapless Isabel struggling to calm Mildred down, Meg feels pressured into making the trip to the coast to sort everything out. Not wanting to repeat that experience, I made sure to finish the last 50ish pages the next day during the daylight hours.There’s a good cast of supporting characters in this book - I particularly liked Cedric, the annoying know-it-all child who kept contradicting the adult characters.