I remember being amazed a few years ago when, in a random discussion about books with my best friend, I made a remark about Hilaire Belloc (basically saying that while he may be best known for his Cautionary Tales poems, he had been a prolific writer including spy novels, history books and some accounts of his sea travels). She replied with the stunning throwaway remark, ‘You don’t need to tell me anything about him – he was my great great-grandfather.’

Having been put in my place for such an egregious attempt at mansplaining, I had to confess that my knowledge of the literary Bellocs was fairly limited, and mostly stemmed from Jonathan Raban’s discussions of Hilaire’ s The Cruise of The Nona within his own book Coasting. Such was my ignorance that I hadn’t realised that Belloc’s sister marie had also been a prolific and celebrated novelist. In fact, she wrote several immensely popular crime novels in the first two decades of the twentieth century, including a few that featured her own sleuth, Hercules-Popeau who first appeared at around the same time as Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.

The Lodger follows the travails of the Buntings, a couple who had previously been employed as butler and maid in a succession of established households. Now fallen on hard times, they are poverty-stricken and wondering how they will be able to afford their next monthly rent. They had previously sublet a large part of the property near Marylebone that they are leasing, but currently have no tenant, and little prospect of finding one before their own rent falls due.

However, they are suddenly visited by a retiring and mysterious stranger (with the odd name of Mr Sleuth) who seems to be looking for exactly what they have to offer. He also seems to have decent financial resources, because he pays several weeks in advance, allowing the Buntings to start to dream of a measure of financial security, in the short term at least. In the meantime, newspaper reports about a series of brutal murders of young women abound.

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I began reading this, and was prepared to be fairly ruthless if the book proved to be at all tedious. There was, however, no worry there at all – the story grabbed me right from the opening paragraphs, and I really couldn’t put it down.

Marie Belloc Lowndes doesn’t indulge in minute developments of her characters, although all of the figures are completely believable. Mr Bunting is a laconic character, slightly obsessed with the lurid accounts of crime in general, and the current series of murders in particular, while his wife is more reserved. Mrs Lowndes’s account of the murders is clearly inspired by the Whitechapel killings attributed to Jack the Ripper, but she carefully avoids any hint of glorifying such awful crimes. Although the newspapers in her novel revel in the sense of terror, the reader is not offered any details at all. I thought the depiction of the response of different elements of London society to the killings was captured very acutely.

The novel was a huge success when first published in 1913, and various film adaptations have been made, include an early silent movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I will certainly be delving further into the works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. ( )

Mr. and Mrs. Bunting, after years of working in service, put their savings into running a lodging house. But things haven’t worked out as profitably as they’d like, and they find themselves very near to starvation when one day the perfect lodger knocks on their door. He wants to rent out all the rooms – he claims he needs peace and quiet for his work – and pays a large sum up front. At first the Buntings are ecstatic, but their eccentric lodger’s arrival in their lives coincides with the beginning of a string of murders near their London neighborhood, and Mrs. Bunting begins to suspect that it may not be a coincidence at all.

Inspired by the theory that Jack the Ripper was himself a lodger of this kind, the story does a great job of exploring the gamut of emotions and thoughts and fears that someone in Mrs. Bunting’s position might experience. Lowndes strikes a nice balance of good story and eerie atmosphere as well. ( )

Tremendously creepy and suspenseful (though not graphic). However, in the end, I wanted resolution and I felt that it wasn't there. Early on, I thought that it might be left up to the reader to decide whether or not the lodger was guilty, but no, that gets spelled out pretty clearly. Then I thought there would be some kind of comeuppance, but nope, it's left hanging. I know this story is based on the Jack the Ripper murders, so I guess that's why the resolution is so unsatisfying, since they were never solved in real life? I also thought that the landlord and his wife might express more regret, but...I'm still not sure how they really felt about their actions or lack thereof. ( )

I really enjoyed reading this book. ( )

This is a free Kindle ebook, written around 1913.
It's not a horror novel, by today's standards, but it is a fascinating observation about morals and class differences in that time period. It made me think more carefully about what people are willing to do or not do to be comfortable in life. It's a bit slow paced but I thought it was worth the time. ( )