Book Review: "Chord of Evil" by Sarah Rayne

It's May 2025 and at the time of writing this, I have recently recorded my I Wrote This challenge recording and probably made a damned fool of myself at that. I finished reading this particular book quite recently and was perhaps surprised when I learnt it was part of more books. It was refreshing to learn that I didn't have to specifically read the other book or books in the series to understand this one because honestly, I'd picked it up randomly in the library (and in this city there isn't really much of a selection when it comes to horror. There's maybe half a small bookshelf, it's quite depressing really). Let's take a look at Chord of Evil by Sarah Payne.

Phineas Fox lives next door to Toby Tallis and the latter enlists his help in finding his cousin, Arabella. In Arabella's flat there is a 1940s portrait and a weird note - but there's no sign of Arabella. The portrait is of a woman named Christa, a 'murderess' and sister of Arabella's godfather named Stefan Cain. At the moment what I could see that there was an intense linkage of characters in a book I noticed was not quite long enough to explore them all. My heart sort of sank for this. I would have liked there to be more here, but perhaps because I hadn't read the book before and it may have been in there.

Then we have another connection between Christa and a lost musical composition. I mean, I understand this but there really wasn't enough time to make me comfortable with all of our characters and then discover this as well. I think there definitely needed to be about one hundred pages more to at least have more atmosphere, but definitely more description of everything. But of course, we are left with a rather step-by-step narrative where we do have moments of intertwining such as some flashes of Nazi Germany. But again, the mix between past and present is there, but I wish it was more explored. There was a lack of depth which left me with some wishing and hoping for more.

Most of the book centres around the theme of the "Devil's Chord" which is a note forbidden to be played in church music. I understand that this is a gothic ideal but honestly, to hinge the story upon this theme is a bit odd and abstract. There are other theories I can make about hidden evils because of this note being hidden within music but honestly, it felt a bit forced. I am quite honest with my reviews and so I will say this: this book seemed to be more of a summary of what a longer novel was going to be rather than the entire novel itself.

Wewelsburg Castle might be a real historical place mostly associated with the SS during World War 2 but the whole atmosphere again, didn't really cut it for me. There's definitely some weird cultish undertones that do permeate through the text and link up with the ideas displayed by the "Devil's Chord" - it peaks at the point where it delves for moments in the castle as a point of connection to the missing Arabella. Otherwise, I'm safe to say that it probably didn't capture me as much as I would have wanted it to.

There is perhaps one redeeming quality to the text lest we forget: the character of Arabella. Most of what we know about Arabella comes from things or places, histories and evidence related to her rather than the person herself and so, with that - the author is able to construct a pretty incredible image of her through all of these things. Yes, it might seem a bit squished into a novel which is shorter than I'd like it to be, but it does go to show that we don't have to meet the character in order to know what they are like in person.

All in all, I feel like this book was definitely a difficult one to place for me. It wasn't a slog to read, everything seemed to happen too quickly and I wasn't quite invested enough in the ways of the main character to take them all in. However, there are a couple of redeeming qualities so I promise not to be too harsh.