This is another slice of murder, mystery and psychic phenomena in the Reverend Paltoquet series.
Just what happened to two young women who disappeared from the Sunnyside Guest House in Blackpool just after the First World War? Their fate has remained a mystery for many years, despite attempts by the husband of the first woman and the prospective husband of the second to find out.
In 1957, Reverend Bernard Paltoquet and his good friend Dr Robbie MacTavish turn up at the very same Blackpool guest house for a fortnight’s rest and recuperation. Their summer break, however, proves very far from restful or recuperative. Robbie is visited in the night by a ghostly bed companion, and another guest, young curate Oliver Johnson, sees a ghost bleed to death in front of his eyes. The scarred landlady of Sunnyside has a secret or two of her own, as well.
Professional medium, Anna Judge, who we first met in the previous novel in the series, THE DARK SIDE OF THE MIRROR, arrives to try and contact the ghosts. However, her powers are waning and it is only the Reverend Nigel Soames who can help. Soames is a colleague of Bernard’s and is staying at the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool at the same time as Bernard and Robbie are staying at the much less expensive Sunnyside. He is an obese and pompous man (described by Anna Judge irreverently as the ‘fat vicar’) who turns out to be the unlikely and very reluctant conduit for the restless spirits that haunt the Blackpool guest house.
Bernard and Robbie, meanwhile, try to enjoy their holiday, but Robbie is spooked by ghosts and Bernard is unsettled by the attentions of another guest at the Sunnyside, the charming and beautiful Celia Pargeter.