The Anatomy of Ghosts

by Andrew Taylor Narrated by John Telfer

Overview

1786, Jerusalem College, Cambridge. The ghost of Sylvia Whichcote is rumored to be haunting Jerusalem, since disturbed fellow-commoner, Frank Oldershaw, claims to have seen the dead woman prowling the grounds.

Desperate to salvage her son's reputation, Lady Anne Oldershaw employs John Holdsworth, author of The Anatomy of Ghosts, a stinging account of why ghosts are mere delusion to investigate. But his arrival in Cambridge disrupts an uneasy status quo as he glimpses a world of privilege and abuse.

And when Holdsworth finds himself haunted not only by the ghost of his dead wife, Maria, but also Elinor-the very-much-alive Master's wife-his fate is sealed.

Editorial Reviews

Marilyn Stasio

…pitches us into dynamic but rowdy 18th-century England, when superstition still held a grip on rational minds despite the advent of the Enlightenment.
—The New York Times

Wendy Smith

Andrew Taylor's brooding thriller…[is a] dark and gripping tale.
—The Washington Post

Kirkus Reviews

University life circa 1786.

After his son's accidental drowning and his wife's despairing suicide, London bookseller John Holdsworth is threatened by insolvency. But a commission from Lady Anne Oldershaw to catalog her late husband's library, bequeathed to Cambridge's Jerusalem College, may signal an upturn in his fortunes. Lady Anne adds one stipulation, however. Holdsworth must locate her son Frank and return him home. Holdsworth is duly dispatched to Cambridge, where he's billeted with Lady Anne's goddaughter Elinor and her ailing husband, Dr. Carbury. Holdsworth locates Frank, who's been under the care of a specialist in mental disorders since his induction into Jerusalem College's Holy Ghost Club and subsequent tormenting by the ghost of beautiful, abused Mrs. Whichcote, whose husband Philip heads up the Ghost Club's debaucheries. More scandal threatens Jerusalem: Even as Dr. Carbury is in his death throes, a frisson of lust attacks Elinor every time she thinks of Holdsworth; a promising scholar is accused of thievery; a lackluster student purchases a thesis proposal; and another woman's death can be laid at the Ghost Club's doorstep. Moreover, Holdsworth finds the library collection mostly inconsequential, and his fondness for Elinor seems disloyal to his wife's memory. Before academe settles down again to intellectual pursuits, blackmail, nocturnal trysts and a re-evaluation of a ghost sighting will surface.

Eighteenth-century Cambridge life exquisitely detailed by Taylor, recipient of the Crime Writers Association Cartier Diamond Dagger award (2009).

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169748215
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	01/01/2011
Edition description:	Unabridged

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