"A woman tries to outsmart a ghost to save the family from financial ruin."
That premise from the title story hit me around 2 AM while I was dealing with insomnia—Linda was asleep, Ranger was snoring at the foot of the bed, and I figured some Victorian ghost stories might be just the thing. Turns out Arlo Bates wrote something genuinely clever here. The ghost in question isn't your standard haunting fare—he's a tipsy specter with a gambling problem, and watching a determined woman outmaneuver him felt like observing a solid tactical operation. That same cat-and-mouse dynamic—someone trying to outthink an unpredictable opponent—shows up in Cat & Mouse, though with considerably higher stakes.
When the Enemy Is Already Dead
Let me cut to the chase: this is a LibriVox production, which means volunteer narrators of wildly varying skill levels. You know what you're getting into—it's free, it's public domain, and quality control is... let's call it "inconsistent." Some readers deliver their stories with genuine theatrical flair. Others sound like they're reading a grocery list in a library basement. That's the trade-off.
But here's the thing—these stories are short enough that even the weaker performances don't overstay their welcome. Nine stories spread across five hours means you're never stuck with any single narrator for too long. Like a patrol rotation. Some shifts are better than others.
Bates Had a Sharp Eye for Human Weakness
What surprised me was the psychological edge in these tales. "A Comedy In Crape"—about multiple women fighting over who gets to be the chief mourner at a playboy's funeral—reads like a satirical after-action report on small-town pettiness. I've seen similar dynamics play out in military communities, honestly. People jockeying for position even in grief.
"In The Virginia Room" caught me off guard. A Southern widow visiting a Confederate museum on the anniversary of her husband's death, encountering a Northerner. The question of whether she can forgive—that's not lightweight ghost-story material. That's the kind of wound that takes generations to heal. I've worked with veterans from both sides of more recent conflicts, and reconciliation is never as simple as a handshake. Bates doesn't pretend it is.
"A Problem In Portraiture" asks whether a man's portrait can influence who he becomes. Sounds like mystical nonsense, but it's really about identity and self-perception—the masks we wear until they become our faces. Nine Perfect Strangers explores similar territory—people trying to transform themselves, though with a wellness retreat instead of a portrait. I've seen young soldiers become the leaders their uniforms demanded they be. Not magic, just human nature.
The LibriVox Gamble
Worth your time? Here's the debrief: you're getting late 19th-century prose, which means longer sentences and more formal language than modern thrillers. The pacing is deliberate. These aren't page-turners designed to spike your adrenaline—they're slow burns that reward attention.
The production quality is exactly what you'd expect from volunteers recording in home setups. No sound effects, no music, no professional audio engineering. Some background noise here and there. If you need polished production, this isn't your mission.
But the stories themselves? Bates was a newspaperman and educator, and it shows. He understood how people rationalize their worst impulses, how grief and greed intertwine, how the supernatural often just amplifies what's already broken in us.
Who Should Saddle Up (And Who Should Stand Down)
This collection works for listeners who appreciate classic short fiction and don't mind variable narration quality. If you're curious about Victorian-era supernatural tales that lean more toward psychological tension than horror—mission accomplished, Bates delivers. Skip it if you need consistent narrator quality across all stories, or if you want action-packed supernatural confrontations. This is quiet, contemplative stuff with occasional dark humor.
I listened at 1.25x as usual, which helped some of the slower readers feel more natural. The formal Victorian prose actually benefits from a slight speed bump.
Cooper Out
Ranger slept through the whole thing, which means it wasn't exciting enough to disturb his dreams. But I stayed awake until 4 AM finishing it, so take that as you will. For a free audiobook about ghosts, curses, and human foolishness, it's a solid way to spend some sleepless hours.
