The Black House

Weird and uneven. The reader is set up with the expectation that something spooky will happen, but if it does, it happens off-screen. Not particularly scary or thrilling at all.

The ending seems to point to Munday being the most savage at all, cheating on his wife while she is dying in the room above. While that's an interesting way to conclude, that particular ending saps any energy from the first section of the book, which is dependent on us being scared for him and his wife Emma. The managing of reader expectations seems to be carelessly done, as if Theroux has contempt for the reader.