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Acorah, Derek "Ghost-hunting with Derek Acorah" 2005, HarperElement, London. Pbk, xvi, 255pp. ISBN 0-00-718348-8 £7.99 / $19.95 (Can)

This book appears to have been published to take advantage of the interest in Derek Acorah, following his TV appearances in shows such as "Most Haunted". The book is devoid of any literary merit, lacks any material that could be used to verify the claims the author makes and has little to do with actual ghost-hunting.

The first chapter contains some guidance on what a ghost hunter might use to undertake an "investigation" into a site with claimed ghostly activity, but there is no attempt to incorporate much of this information into the rest of the book which contains a series of short chapters dealing with the author's claimed encounters with a range of phenomena including poltergeists, residual energies and invisible "spirits". These encounters take place in a variety of locations included haunted castles, hotels, farm buildings and so-forth. The book also has a section on various means of communicating with spirits including ouija boards, table tipping, dowsing rods, scrying and so forth, but about which Mr Acorah has mixed opinions.

In fact author doesn't seem to need many of the items described in the first chapter as he has an invisible "spirit guide" with whom he can communicate, and which communicates with the invisible spirits he encounters. One either has to accept his word that these events took place as described or not. To pad out the book he includes a chapter of stories sent in my viewers to his programs or readers of his books; a chapter of places to go where you might encounter ghosts and even a chunk of one of his earlier books.

There is little to recommend in this book. It is of no value for serious researchers into ghostly phenomena, the case studies have no evidence to back them up and much of the rest is too general or commonplace to make it worth reading. I'd advise saving your pennies on this one and waiting a while. If you really want to read it I suspect it'll be turning up in charity shops and jumble sales quite soon.

2/10

Richard Alexander