SOURCE: “The Mysterious Affair at Jeddah,” in Spectator, Vol. 260, No. 8340, May 14, 1988, p. 43.

In the following mixed review, Brookner considers the controlled atmosphere of Eight Months on Ghazzah Street.

Devotees of Hilary Mantel's earlier novels will be surprised by this one [Eight Months on Ghazzah Street] a horror story with an atmosphere as strange as that of a detective story, but a detective story that fails to tie up the loose ends. Clues abound and plots are plotted, but explanations are lacking. Before the last page has been reached one is fiercely uncomfortable, as if one had been trapped inside a complete delusional system. And the characteristic of delusional systems is that their logic is extreme but inaccessible to those on the outside. A peculiar fear emanates from this narrative: I dread to think what it did to the writer herself.

Frances Shore is off to join her husband...