Title: The Angry Ghost and Other Stories
Author: Peter Spokes
Publisher: Matador
Pages: 521
My GoodReads Rating: 
The stories in this collection contain a mix of horror
tropes, including ghosts, monsters, werewolves, the walking dead etc.
The style of the writing dates the
stories, setting them in the past. Each story is well told, propped up by the
sense of atmospheric menace that marks a good ghost story. They give us the
impression that we are safe, but only just.
Some of the stories display
self-awareness of horror as a genre. A narrator in one story describes
Lovecraft as his favourite author. Over and over, we also see rationalists
realizing and acknowledging that ghosts exist.
1) The
Angry Ghost: Five members of the Ghost Club tell each other ghost stories that
they make up. Michael, who is wheelchair bound following an accident, offers to
tell a ghost story that is all too true. He claims that on a recent visit to a
Cornwall village to find an unusual flower, he came to know of a ghost. A woman
who jumped to her death in the icy lake on her wedding day when her beloved
fiancé failed to show up for their wedding. For the last 20 years, the ghost
has been haunting the lake on the anniversary of the wedding. While the basic
story was something I’d heard before, here it was elevated to a tender love
story.
2) A
Strange Occurrence: Four friends, a judge, a psychologist, a Cambridge
physicist, and a rationalist, gather at the Archive Room of a library. Samuel,
the rationalist, talks about the sighting of a ghostly hound. The hound belongs
to Fr Bryan James. The previous story had a group of friends that enjoy ghost
stories. Here we have friends who debunk them, preferring to believe in
evidence. The tone of this story counters our scepticism, reminding us that
stranger things have happened.
3) The
Ghosts of Kilronan: A rationalist, Monty, visits his birthplace at the
invitation of Fr Ardal Fitzpatrick to talk about a case where a young child’s
actions resulted in the death of their sister. Monty too is burdened with guilt
at having caused the death of his younger sister, Rosie, when they were kids.
The priest also wants him to investigate the presence of ghosts in the village.
4) Flowers
and Butterflies: was written from the PoV of an unlikely and unusual rescue
worker.
5) Happy
Hallowe’en: The walking dead crew, Frank, Lucy, new boy Linus and narrator
Michael, meet for a Halloween party where they compete for the best dressed
character. This one was quite entertaining.
6) A Dog
Needs His Walk: A man says goodbye to his wife, and heads out for a walk with
his dog, only to be struck by a realization.
7) Back
for Him: The narrator takes his grandfather, who has dementia, to an old
lifeboat station from his past, to help him recuperate after an illness. There
the old man is reminded of five of his friends who went out on a rescue mission
during a storm and never returned. The descriptions in this story were so good,
I actually visualized the scene. This story was about friendship, tenderness
and old friends dearly missed.
8) Rachel
and the Beast: Rachel, a young police cadet, is out staking a criminal, a man
known for brutally killing prostitutes, when the unexpected happens.
9) The
Trial of Gerald Blake: Gerald, a man who has killed several times, is led to
the punishment he deserves. This story had a reference to the afterlife, but I
wasn’t sure if it belonged in this collection.
10) Always April: A ghost unable to
leave the cemetery in Queenstown, Ireland, tries to find out why the place has
a hold on him. This story stresses that love is more powerful than death.
11) The Gift: A despotic ruler receives
a gift, a living painting, from the pagans he is most cruel to.
12) Under
Isis: Ash returns home after years to avenge the murder of his parents and the
burning of their home, and to find out who killed his uncle. He is no longer
the boy of eleven who was afraid. Now he is a thing to be feared himself, if
only he would acknowledge the truth about himself.
13) Superheroes:
This was a sweet tale about a young boy, Davey, who can’t understand why his
older friends are slighting him. I loved this one.
14) Number
Eight: Nine-year-old Alex is Number Eight in an eight-member group studying
rock caves as part of a tour. Afraid of monsters, she worries that she will be
the first to be eaten. Midway through the tour, she needs to pee.
15) The
Museum of Fabulous Monsters: A watchman, working at the Museum of Fabulous
Monsters and suffering from physical deformities himself, shows us his
vulnerable side and the care he takes in ensuring that his pet is well fed. The
story raises important questions about how society denies the humanity of those
it sees as imperfect and hideous.
16)
Demosthenes: An investigation is initiated into the curious case of eight Greek
students securing 100 percent in a plethora of subjects. Since the man who
conducted the investigation, Silas Zacharias, has suddenly taken ill, his
colleague, Trevor St John is asked to report the findings to a committee. St
John, who has a pronounced stammer, begins to talk eloquently. How is that
possible? This story was very entertaining.
17)
Just One Dear Friend: The body of Alphonse DeMara is found at the Museum, where
he works, in the Hall of the Afterlife. It turns out that he had a heart
attack, but Bobby, the narrator, knows that his dear friend, Alphonse, got some
help from someone in the afterlife.
18)
Thick as Thieves: A security officer, Chris Gibson, connives with three thieves
to steal some paintings from the place he is assigned to guard. Unfortunately
for him, the plan goes awry. The paintings don’t get stolen, and the thieves
end up killing one another. When Chris begins to see the ghosts of the thieves,
demanding their payment, he wonders if it is because of the tumour in his head. This story was
hugely entertaining.
19)
Alice and I: Fourteen-year-old twin sisters, Alice and the narrator, are
playing on the branches of a tall tree when the branch snaps. The narrator
breaks her sister’s fall and dies. Their parents, heartbroken, erase all
evidence of her. The narrator, still haunting the house, can’t understand why. This
one was poignant.
20)
Legend: Members of an ancient tribe are being ruthlessly hunted by monsters.
The tribe has honour, courage and loyalty on its side. The monsters are brutal.
It was only halfway through this story that I realized who the tribe is and who
the monsters are.
21)
The Magic of Seagulls (As if in Her Shadow): Is she a beautiful woman or is she
a seagull?
22)
The Corpse: A clever story of a murderer, who killed three young women, facing
punishment. I was pleased when I guessed the identity of the narrator in the
very first paragraph of the story.
23)
In Lepsa: Lowell, a former soldier and subsequent caretaker of wolves, is now a
bestselling author of fantastic fiction in which the hero, named after his good
friend, Ryker, battles vampires, zombies, demons and devils. Lowell is called
to Lepsa to save the people from a werewolf who is terrorizing the village.
24) The
Twin: A very interesting story about a dead twin, who goes about killing every
person responsible for taking away his right to live.
25) That
Difficult Age: A 15-year-old girl has just had an experience, her first, and is
filled with anguish. We think it’s teenage hormones but it’s not.
26) Echoes of Chronus: An elderly
man has a heart attack on seeing a blast from the past surface in the present.
27) Dreams and Maybe
Hallucinations: A warm and tender story of a family able to pass on the gift of
life thanks to a supernatural encounter.
28) Chinese Whispers: This story is
written in the first person PoV of Lucifer.
29) Fire and Flames: The woods
close to a village are supposed to be haunted because of a number of deaths
that have occurred there. The lines between the sacred and the profane get
blurred and it appears that the one has become the other. This was one of the
longest stories in this book and it took its own sweet time coming to the
point.
30) Let the Rats Feast: The story
is written in the perspective of an unnamed narrator, who doesn’t remember who,
much less what, he is. Beside him lies a wolf cub for whom he feels unexpected
yet intense love.
31) Fish and Reminisce: A man has
an encounter with a ghost but it isn’t quite how he thinks it is.
32) The Case of the Reverend
Taplow: A reverend with a thirst for the forbidden. The story is written in the
3rd person limited PoV of two characters. There was a fantastic
twist at the end.
33) The Red Plains of Vigrior: I
will not comment on this one as I don’t read fantasy.
34) Terminus; A befitting end to
this series of short stories, this story is an interesting take on the
afterlife.
The stories I loved were Superheroes;
Thick as Thieves; Alice and I; The Twin; Dreams and Maybe Hallucinations, and Fish
and Reminisce.
The stories that didn’t work for me
were: Flowers and Butterflies; The Trial of Gerald Blake; The Gift, and The
Magic of Seagulls (As if in Her Shadow).
All in all, a good collection of short
stories with far more hits than misses.
(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)
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