The Glass Demon

Title: The Glass Demon
Author: Helen Grant
Pub Date: 2010
Genre: Fiction
Nutshell: A teenage girl is plunged into a dangerous mystery over stained glass supposedly haunted by a demon

First, some notes: I discovered this book through A Podcast to the Curious, which is about the ghost stories of M.R. James. I found that podcast through the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, which is probably still my favorite podcast ever. If you have an interest in the more traditional ghost story or in weird fiction in general, you could do much worse than checking out those two productions.

Now, on to the book. Author Helen Grant is a devotee of M.R. James, and you can see some of that in her choice of story here. M.R. James was instrumental in the discovery of the missing stained glass from Steinfeld Abbey, which he also wrote about in his story "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas." The Glass Demon takes the idea of lost glass one step further and imbues it with a curse: the man who created the glass made a pact with the devil in order to create such a masterwork. This demon haunts the glass and kills those associated with it. 

Into this story come Lin and her family. Her academic father is obsessed with finding the glass in order to make a name for himself by publishing a book about it. Having knocked about two different graduate departments for a few years, I can tell you that nothing in Lin's father's behavior is that difficult to believe. 

The narrative flows along rather quickly and it was definitely a fairly speedy read. The one thing I really wished for is that I could have felt some amount of sympathy for one of the characters besides Lin and her cohort Michel. Everyone else was just a mess and a few were downright awful. Lin's parents are fairly irredeemable. There is a sister who  is not completely objectionable, but her method of victimization was slightly galling. Also related to her character: if you have trigger issues with eating disorders, you might be wary. Most of the surrounding characters are also not exceptionally fleshed out or irritating. I suppose this leads to your clinging more or less to the main character and feeling as isolated as she does, but it still wasn't the most comfortable reading experience. 

However, if you can get over the irritating characters, this is a good book that moves at a fast clip and was a pretty good mystery. I didn't see the ending coming, which is always a plus.