Duckworth | 2021 | 304p | Bought copy | Buy the book | Listen to the audiobook
Belfast, 1914 and it is two years since the Titanic sank, taking with it to the cold dark depths William Jackson Crawford’s brother-in-law Arthur. William’s wife Elizabeth looks for comfort from medium Kathleen Goligher, who claims that restless spirits can speak through her. But William is a sceptic and a scientist who is determined to prove Kathleen a liar and fraud. But, when he attends an event to expose her, he hears voices that he cannot explain, intensified after further tragic events. Could it be that the rational scientist and teacher is himself haunted? William Jackson Crawford must know and his obsessive investigations attracts celebrity attention. But then William, the famous Spirit Engineer, begins his own experiments and enters the darkness.
I’m a big fan of historical gothic novels and The Spirit Engineer is a novel I couldn’t wait to read. I actually listened to the audiobook, which is wonderfully read by Dickon Farmar. This is a story that really lends itself to that format and gave it an extra creepy atmosphere. Excellent. The novel begins with tragedy and the reader is well aware that soon, this being 1914, there will be many more restless souls, people dying before their time on the battlefields of northern Europe. But, for Belfast, the loss of the Titanic is an immediate source of grief and questions about the nature of life and death. William Jackson Crawford, a real person and Professor of Engineering, can’t reconcile his wife’s need to commune with the dead with his own scientific query for fact. But then he hadn’t suffered his own tragedy quite yet.
This is an extremely atmospheric and pretty disturbing novel. It begins in normality, with William suspecting his wife of having an affair, thanks to some strange letters from their former maid who left in mysterious circumstances. But the more William becomes obsessed, the darker the book becomes. And it’s then that you start to take notice of the shadows in the room.
There are moments of surreal lightness, such as when William attracts the attention of celebrities of the day, such as Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini, but we’re entering the world of the macabre and gothic melodrama as we descend deeper into William’s mind. My one stumbling block in the novel was how absolutely despicable William Jackson Crawford is and being in his mind is not a pleasant place to be as the novel and his madness progress. His cruelty and the distress he causes are upsetting. But The Spirit Engineer is a powerful novel and it presents a compelling portrait of a man’s spiral into darkness.
The Spirit Engineer is a genuinely frightening novel, steeped in atmosphere, with a witty edge. The author’s achievement is even more incredible when you realise that this is a true story. AJ West finds the heart of it. Perfect reading or listening for these winter nights.
Ghost hunters have never been so busy. The cases are building up for the Rook family but this job should be a quickie. They’ve headed for Coldbay Island, a small island off the coast of Lincolnshire, where they have been hired by the local vicar Grace Barry to rid her church of an angry spirit that likes nothing more than to smash the place up. But Brenda and her son Darryl see such things as they cross the bridge onto the island – ghosts are everywhere they look, sad and lost spirits, far too many for Brenda’s sister Charity to pop out of this realm. The island appears to be deserted of the living and it soon becomes clear that this will be no quick case. Indeed, the Rooks are soon rather concerned that they’re all that stands between the world and the apocalypse.
Terror has come to Mount Hood in Oregon and Tennant Riggin and her much younger sister Sophie are the only survivors from a small community of people living off the grid. Everyone has either vanished or their bodies have been smashed to pieces. The government gathers together a group of scientists, experts in, among other things, the environment, in medicine, in space. They are sealed off from the rest of the world as they study this terrible phenomenon – death is brought by a catastrophic noise and it seems there is a pattern to it. Psychologist Martha Chan believes the answers can be found with Tennant and Sophie but, with the noise spreading, will there be time to save humanity?
The mining town of Northfall, Minnesota, was already dying before the night it was hit by a devastating shower of meteorites. On the same night, a young boy’s life is changed forever by the murder of his parents, a deed that is overshadowed by the discovery that the meteorites contain an unknown metal, the Ninth, which is more precious than gold and more useful than any known element. Now the world is coming to Northfall. Anyone can become a millionaire but the biggest money is for those who own land. Northfall has become a new Wild West and at the heart of it stands one family, the Frontiers.
Banyan Court is a thirteen-storey high residential block, nestled within London. One half of the building is enjoyed by the very wealthy; the other half is social housing, its tenants uncared for and regularly evicted. At the very top, in his penthouse, lives Tobias Fell, the reclusive billionaire who designed and built Banyan Court. Many of the residents have a tale to tell about this building that they live in and here we are presented with the stories of twelve of them. These men, women and children live in both sides of Banyan Court, or they service it in some way – a security guard, a plumber, a letting agent. And each of the stories ends with the teller receiving an invitation to attend a party in Tobias Fell’s penthouse, a party from which, we are told at the very beginning, Tobias Fell will not emerge alive and yet not one of his guests saw a thing.
When relationship trouble means that Frank McCray can no longer bear to live alone in his house in paradise, his sister Kate Holland and her husband Dan are thrilled to move in. They needed to do something drastic to save their own marriage. It would not survive much longer on the California coast. And so they switch Venice Beach for the isolated, high-end, high-tech eco-community of Greenloop in the foothills of Mount Rainier in Washington State. The small hamlet was founded by high-tech CEO Tony Durant, who also lives there with his wife. The latest gadgets are installed in the houses and supplies are brought in by drone or driverless vehicle. But they are surrounded by the most gorgeous scenery, the perfect environment to thrive in away from the ratrace. And, besides, Seattle, is only a couple of hours away. It is the best of both worlds and Kate Holland loves it, recording her happiness and excitement in a journal for her therapist. 
Dee becomes a person of interest to the police when 8-year-old Felicity disappears from her Oxford home. Dee is Felicity’s nanny and Felicity is no ordinary child. She is the daughter of Nick, the new high-profile Master of one of Oxford’s colleges, and the stepdaughter of Nick’s glamorous and pregnant Danish wife, Mariah. Felicity is selectively mute. She hardly ever speaks and, when she does, it’s only to her father and never to Mariah. But now she speaks to Dee, the Scottish nanny who feels drawn to this strange child, who collects bones and other creepy things, arranging them in enigmatic patterns on her bedroom floor, to keep her safe from the ghosts she believes haunts her home, an old college building with a past. Dee joins forces with a curious and eccentric house historian, Linklater, to try and help Felicity understand what secrets the house hides. This is Dee’s side of the story and when Felicity vanishes what are the police to think?
It is 1916 and Annie Hebbley has just joined the ship Britannic as a nurse. This enormous ship, a sister ship to Titanic, has been drafted into war service, ferrying the injured and dying from the battlefields of southern Europe back home to Britain. This marks the start of a new life for Annie and it’s one she’s lucky to have, for Annie was a maid aboard Titanic. It was a miracle that she survived but she’s spent the time since in an asylum. But now she has hope of recovery even if it means she must return to the sea and the sea is something that both calls to Annie and terrifies her.
One morning, milkman Phil Pepper has the shock of his life. He discovers a naked man soaked in blood, his behaviour wild and terrifying, the name of a demon carved into his stomach flesh – Baal-Berith. Professor Matt Hunter, a former minister and now an atheist and an expert on satanism and the supernatural, is called in by the police. He tells them that Baal-Berith is the demonic spirit of blasphemy and murder and therefore it should come as no surprise when a body is discovered, horribly killed. The media and the public are fascinated by the case and a debate begins about demons, possession and exorcism. Matt becomes caught up in a frenzy that spins out of control, but he is determined to help those who believe themselves possessed, striving to remain the voice of reason, even when he is tested to his very limits.
It is 1917 and Stella Marcham is stricken by grief for the loss of her fiancé Gerald, killed in the trenches of France during the Great War, a war which shows no signs of ending. There are still many young men whose lives the war waits to claim. Stella’s family find Stella’s grief hard to deal with and, as the months pass, suspect a mental weakness. They find a solution. Stella’s sister Madeleine is pregnant. Her husband has moved her away from London to the safety of the countryside and his manor house, Greyswick, and the care of his mother, Lady Brightwell, while he continues his war work in the capital. She needs a companion. Both sisters are delighted to see each other and draw comfort from the other. But Stella is worried by how she finds her sister. Madeleine seems unsettled, unhappy, even frightened, and when Stella finds a little toy soldier tucked inside her bed she begins to understand that something is not right with this house. And then the nights are disturbed by the sound of a child crying. A child that cannot possibly exist.
For winter nights - A bookish blog 