The House on the Strand by Daphne Du Maurier

I bought this book from Blossom Book House last year. Though I have read several works of Daphne Du Maurier, I had never heard of this one until my aunt told me about it.

The narrator in the book- Richard Young, is not really working at the time. He has a very close scientist friend Magnus, who develops a drug which can port a person mentally to another time. Magnus requests Richard to test it for him. Now, the person who is porting to another time is an invisible spectator to the events of the time they are transported into and can only observe but of course not influence anything in that world. Richard is initially reluctant to try, however, on the persuasion of Magnus agreed to test the drug on himself (being a clinical research professional, I do not condone such an approach to drug testing). Richard stations himself in Magnus' mansion in Kilmarth which is supposed to be really ancient and constructed several centuries ago. He is transported to 14th century England and finds himself amidst the aristocracy of the time. Also, he finds himself following a steward of the time- Roger, a pivotal figure in Richard's ported world. Richard enjoys what he sees, and takes frequent "trips" to the past to a point that he gets obsessed with what he sees and his curiosity of know how things unfold gets a stronger grip of him.

As and when Richard continues to take the drug, the related side-effects grows stronger and stronger. Richard is married to an American- Vita who has two boys. All of them fly to Kilmarth to accompany Richard but he is in a point in his life, where he could do without them due to his obsession with the trips. Vita is an intelligent and very inquisitive person. She observes Richard strange behaviour but is not able to put her finger on the reason for it. She believes it has something to do with Magnus but is not sure, what exactly. The story takes an unfortunate turn leading to an inquest which find Richard in the middle of things. It is very obvious to Richard that whatever happened was due to the drug but he manages to deceptively conceal it. He does not learn from it and continues taking his trips until he finds strangling his wife. It is this time that he realises that it is time to seek for help, which he does. He rids himself of the drug and decides to take a break from the place- only to find some more which he had hidden but forgotten about and decides to take one last trip. Fortunately for him, this trip gives him the closure he needed and the story ends there. For more details, you have to read the book.

I think the book was much ahead of its time. It is also interesting to see that time travel or porting to another time was something that was already a topic of discussion when the book was written, which I think, may have inspired the main theme of the book. The language was relatively simple. I think it was a very gripping read. As a reader, you don't need a drug, just the vivid descriptions of the author to transport you to England in the 60s and also 14th century. I am glad to have this book recommended to me and would surely recommend it to others who are interested in such genres. This is not much of a review, I know- sometimes, not a lot can be said about a great book. On a scale of 5 (5 being excellent), I would rate the book 4.5.