Not Exactly Ghosts

Book excerpt: Here together for the first time in one volume are the twenty five spooky stories created by Sir Andrew Caldecott in two collections the 1940s: Not Exactly Ghosts and Fires Burn Blue.Caldecott, who only turned to fiction after retiring from the civil service, allowed his lifelong fascination with the supernatural full reign in these simple yet remarkably disturbing stories. Taking his inspiration from the master of the ghost story, M. R. James, who chilled by implication rather than by gory description, Caldecott created believable but unsettling scenarios which effectively produce a sense of unease in the reader. The mundane becomes horrific; the everyday is unnerving; and the commonplace is frightening. At last these rare forgotten gems are available once more to stir the imagination and chill the blood.