Venom House

By Arthur W. Upfield

Book Overview

The Answerth family's mansion seems to deserve its nickname of Venom House - perhaps because of its forbidding setting, an island in the centre of a man-made lake, its treacherous waters studded by the skeletons of long-dead trees. Perhaps it's because of the unquiet ghosts of the Aboriginals slaughtered by the Answerth ancestors. Whatever the reason, most people are content to give Venom House and its occupants a wide berth... until a couple of corpses turn up in the lake...

The strength of Upfield's accomplishment in this book is so overwhelming it makes the reader cower. The characters are well-developed, the conversation vernacular for the Australian outback, and the development compelling. The story is the nearest Upfield comes to a story that would have made Edgar Allen Poe envious, Upfield maintains a kind of corpse-like humour which is very amusing... The whole book is first-class Upfield and first-class crime fiction. - from The Spirit of Australia by Ray Brown.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1922384097
• ISBN13: 9781922384096
• Release Date: March 2020
• Publisher: ETT Imprint
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Venom House

Set in Queensland, Bony's home state, the novel focuses on the disparity of character between 2 sisters and their brother. One sister is tougher than the majority of stockmen, the other as refined as the ladies of leisure in a city mansion. The brother is a virtual prisoner maintained in a purile state yet has great strength. They live with the housekeeper isolated on an island in a lagoon on which Venom House stands. Upfield uses the house's savage history to support his contention that the sins of the ancestors can be visited upon the living and Bony has to battle with his aboriginal fear of darkness to solve the succession of murders. The normal characters of solid local policeman and reliable bushman appear but this time the pretty "squatters" daughter expriences a quite different role.