A Remembrance Of Ghosts

by Frank Barnard

‘A Remembrance Of Ghosts is superb, a wonderful book. Frank Barnard is a damned fine writer.’
– Peter James, best seller author of the Roy Grace thrillers

It is 1958 and local newspaper reporter Tom Doyle follows a tip about the Looker, a legendary monster said to prowl the marshlands. He starts by treating it as a joke but soon finds himself entangled in a world in which old values lie wrecked by war, a world of lost souls whose lives have been changed for ever, in which ancient evil stalks the ruins and superstition, sorcery and sacrifice threaten untimely death. And yet with Alice, Doyle finds fresh hope as the new world of the 1960s beckons – if first he can solve the mystery of the Looker.

486 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 25, 2019

About the author

Frank Barnard trained as a journalist before moving into public relations. He worked as managing director for major international consultancies before quitting at 50 to write full time and race cars. He is married with two children and four grandchildren with whom he enjoys sailing and sea-fishing near his home in Rye, Sussex.

Reviews

[Matthew Willis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Remembrance of Ghosts is something of a departure for Frank Barnard in several respects. Most obviously, it’s not a war novel and is not centred around aviation (although that is by no means absent). This novel is a coming-of-age story, a kind of elegy for times that are lost but not forgotten, and a portrait of a country struggling to emerge from the long shadow of the Second World War.

In 1958, Tom Doyle, a ‘cub’ reporter on a Kent local newspaper, starts out extremely wet behind the ears but affecting world-weariness and cynicism. He’s an engaging if sometimes frustrating hero. (Or possibly anti-hero) who has much to learn about human nature, as he negotiates a world that feels on the brink of change but is still held back by its many ghosts.

A Remembrance of Ghosts is an extraordinarily rich novel, tragic and sometimes blackly comic. The ghosts of the title take many different forms. The novel is overlaid by grief, lost opportunities and a struggle to adjust, everyone seemingly fighting their own private battle to keep going. In the midst of this is a mystery that Tom must disentangle, concerning the Tallaton family and the ancient myths of the area. There are hints of Dennis Wheatley and even Lord of the Flies in the sinister goings-on in the marshes, centred on the eerie Castle Malfaire lurking therein, and twists and turns aplenty which kept me turning pages until the end. A Remembrance of Ghosts is far more than a mystery or a thriller, though it works extremely well as both of those. It is in the portrayal of austerity Britain, and its painful letting-go of the legacy of war, that marks this novel out as truly special.