Plumbing the mysteries of poltergeists

This is a paranormal book — by which I mean it exists in a truly out of the ordinary netherworld of amiable smut and arch silliness not normally associated with titles reviewed in these pages. But hold on, there is a point — which I’ll come to later.‘Perhaps Wakdjunkaga was really Gef the Talking Mongoose.’ I read this amazing sentence and was about to throw the book across the room, but then realised that a flying paperback might, if S.D. Tucker were to see it, be interpreted as evidence for the existence of poltergeists (from the German for ‘noisy spirit’).

So I read on resignedly until my wife interrupted me and said: ‘That looks self-published.’ She is a designer. ‘One thing I’d recommend to any publisher is, if using black and white photography, always choose a high contrast image,’ she continued, thoughtfully flicking through the pages. The repro in Blithe Spirits makes everyone look like a grey lady.

With an energy as irrepressible as the most violent and noisy haunting, Tucker, who lives in Widnes and has something of
a fixation with excrement (an entire chapter is dedicated to ‘Toilet Humour’), rambles on and on.