Reviewed by Rachel A Hyde, MyShelf.com 
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A fascination for ghosts seems almost universal and increases rather than fades away the more we know about the world around us.  Perhaps the supernatural is the last bastion of the unknown, the last place on our personal knowledge where the caption “here be dragons” could be said to the sum total of our understanding.  It is therefore hardly surprising that the first volume of true ghost stories was a bestseller and this second volume is set to follow suit.

Set out under headings such as ghosts with a message, the wicked and the cruel, poltergeists, timeslips and ghosts of the famous the authors have gathered together stories – many from actual eyewitnesses – from all over the world although Great Britain and Canada predominate.  The stories are told succinctly and without flowery or gothic language that might make them sound suspect and a number of photographs show not only some of the places where the hauntings have taken place but also a ghost or two.  Here is a photograph of a man who just had to be in a military group photograph – despite the fact he had died three days before the picture was taken.  Among the stories we can learn that the ill-fated Millennium Dome had a ghost, read of the moving coffins of Barbados and discover where the ghosts of Blackbeard, Emily Bronte and General Custer might be seen.  What makes the tales so compelling is the fact that most of them are modern and with a few exceptions have been seen by ordinary people.

This might have been the sort of book to just sit down and read if the stories had been longer and “padded out” but to do this would have resulted in a loss of verisimilitude and lacked conviction.  As it is this is a compelling case indeed for the existence of the “unseen world” as well as being a great coffee table book and conversation piece.  A wonderful present of the kind that gets “opened more than once” - if you can bear to part with it!

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