Not the best Wilkie Collins novel

So, we have 6 siblings from an aristocratic family, the eldest having the title Lord Montberry. Lord Montberry is engaged to cousin Agness, but dumps her and instead marries the beautiful Countess Narona, this is despite Countess Narona having a black reputation, and money troubles. Lord Montberry suddenly dies of Pneumonia while staying at a palace in Venice. Luckily he had recently taken out Life Assurance for £10k, so this goes along way to sorting out the money troubles of his new wife Narona. Meanwhile, the palace in Venice gets converted to a hotel...apparently a haunted one. I really got into other Wilkie Collins novels, I like his Victorian style of writing and moderately complicated plots. Not sure that I liked this one as much as the others. It's a cross between a murder mystery and a haunted house story. Also, it's quite short. I eagerly anticipated the ending giving us a full explanation for everything...but let's just say I was disappointed. The listener does have to suspend disbelief regarding the supernatural. This is a Victorian Ghost story after all! Still a pretty good listen - hence 4 stars.

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Takes a long time to get going

overall I enjoyed the story but if I had of been reading it rather than listening to it then I would have given up. The story includes a number of surplus characters which just makes the thing confusing and draws out the plot to such an extent that it becomes boring. The narrator did a good job putting on a variety of different voices and read it at a nice slow pace and was very clear.