Confession time: When I first picked up this book, I have to admit that I thought I was about to read a ghost story, having watched the screen adaptation of Susan Hill's The Woman in Black, starring Daniel Radcliffe; but to my shameful surprise The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins does not bear any shadow of a ghost in its moderately thick pages. Although in my defense I must say that the story has the requirements of Gothic horror -- in the first few chapters, that is. 
 In The Woman in White, Collins took advantage of the popularity of ghosts, especially women clothed in long, flowing dresses. He deliberately fashioned alleged apparitions in the first stage of the story to drive the reader to an assumption of an inevitable tale of a ghost plaguing a group of people. A few more chapters later I realized I was tricked. Whatever the story was leading to, I thought, it certainly was not in that direction. Curious than ever I read on. 
 It was only halfway through the book did I come to the realization that The Woman in White is simply an old thriller, one that was written in a genuinely heart-stopping style of language and equally heart-stopping plot wrinkles. In plain words The Woman in White is one of the best thrillers I have ever read.