SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 'A page-turner with the authority of history'
PHILIPPA GREGORY 'As gripping as a novel. An engaging unsettling deeply satisfying read'
SARAH WATERS London 1938. Alma Fielding an ordinary young woman begins to experience
supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor - a Jewish-Hungarian refugee and chief
ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research - begins to investigate. In
doing so he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma alienation loss - and
the foreshadowing of a nation's worst fears. As the spectre of Fascism lengthens over Europe
and as Fodor's obsession with the case deepens Alma becomes ever more disturbed. With rigour
daring and insight the award-winning pioneer of historical narrative non-fiction Kate
Summerscale shadows Fodor's enquiry delving into long-hidden archives to find the human story
behind a very modern haunting. 'An empathetic meticulous account of a spiritual unravelling a
tribute to the astonishing power of the human mind - but also a properly absorbing baffling
satisfying detective story' AIDA EDEMARIAM A PICK OF THE AUTUMN IN THE TIMES SUNDAY TIMES
OBSERVER AND THE GUARDIAN
