blurb: In a cavernous, the lights dim. A beautiful young sopranos, Christine Daae, comes onstage to sing Marguerite in Gounod’s ‘Faust’. In the audience, the Vicomte de Chagny is overcome with love. But unbeknownst to Chagny, he has a rival for the singer’s affections: the Opera Ghost, a spectre sometimes called the Angel of Music.This is the appropriately gothic set up for The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux’s enduringly popular thriller. With a plot as convoluted as the hidden passages beneath the opera house and a cast of characters as numerous as the chorus of Aida, the novel works its spell through a sheer accumulation of intricate detail and shadowy menace. A falling chandelier (taken from a true incident) and an underground lake add to the gloom and dread. The novel, richer than any of it’s adaptations, is best read at night, with the lights turned low, and with music - ‘Faust’, perhaps - playing softly in the background.