JOHN Holdsworth is invited by Lady Anne Oldershaw to restore the credibility of her son Frank. Frank claims that he has been seeing ghosts and Holdsworth, hero of The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor has the reputation of proving that ghosts are only delusions. But when Holdsworth lands in Jerusalem College in Cambridge he is himself haunted by the ghost of his wife, who had drowned years earlier.
He is also haunted by Elinor, the much-alive wife of the Master, who is at the end of life, suffering from a lump. He now must resolve the ghost issue. The secret society active in the college over powers even the Master. How Holdsworth reconciles to the various emotional pulls is the plot of the novel. It is placed in the 1780s.
The novel is a crime thriller by Andrew Taylor, winner of several awards. His other popular books include The American Boy and Roth Triology.
(Penguin Books Ltd 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL., England)
