GHOST by Helen Grant

A few months ago I (proof)read a story in Issue 40 of Supernatural Tales and thoroughly enjoyed a story in there written by Helen Grant. So when I saw on Twitter that she had written a book called Ghost, I downloaded it forthwith.
   Here is a review. No spoilers here.
   The writing, as I pretty much expected, is solid. The descriptive narrative is very strong, conveying a great sense of place and time (especially hard to do in this case as most of the action happens in one building and its environs); the dialogue is mainly realistic, occasionally a bit too perfect for genuine speech.
   The characters are also very strong. The strength of the book, in fact, is the development of the main character(s) and that feels extremely (and sometimes horribly) real.
   The plot is perhaps weaker than the writing and character development. It's quite mysterious to start off with, but the explanations turn out to be... not prosaic exactly, but not as dramatic as the reader expects. Maybe I read too may Agatha Christies, but I figured out the ending before it happened. Thinking back, I can see lots of little pointers that make the ending more believable, but the basic premise and the development of the plot, it seems to me, to require a little suspending of disbelief. That said, the early mystery and the gradual discovery of past secrets is well observed.
   I enjoyed reading Ghost. I can recommend it as a good read.
   Oh, and the only points that my proofreader radar picked up were 1) there's a set of speech quotes missing (who cares?) and 2) any more is spelled anymore throughout.
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