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THE SERVANTS by M.M. SMITH

Published by Harper Collins

Young Mark is a boy with a problem in this fantastic (in the truest sense of the word) novella by M.M. Smith (aka thriller writer Michael Marshall). Forced to move to Brighton with his sickly mother and new stepfather David, Mark directs most of his energy into badly learning how to skateboard down on the seafront but as his situation at home grows worse he seeks out the elderly lady who lives in the flat below (David has bought an old Victorian era terrace complete with sitting tenant in the basement). The old lady introduces Mark to a whole new world behind a lock door in her tiny flat.

Mark learns that the entire basement was the servants quarters of the well to do family that owned the house originally and the more time Mark spends in the dusty and abandoned corridors and rooms of the basement and the iller his mother becomes (it quickly becomes obvious that Mark's mum is actually dying) the more the presence of the servants seem to take solid form.

This small scale but superbly involving story is essentially an Henry James style ghost piece transformed into an almost elegiacal story of loss and learning. Smith (or Marshall) has a lovely deceptive and simple style that allows the book to fall into your psyche quite easily and while The Servants may, with its young protagonist, be thought of as a young person's book it is highly recommended to all ages. The design of the jacket is worthy of mention too, highly authentic.

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