Jack Parlabane is the ultimate cynical newspaper hack. He aspires to scepticism, but his usual reaction to anything remotely 'woo' is to dismiss it with a curt "Aye, right."
In the course of his duties as rector of Kelvin University his path crosses that of Gabriel Lafayette, a renowned psychic from New Orleans, who has convinced a number of influential people including a wealthy businessman and a tabloid columnist married to a high ranking New Labour politician that he is able to communicate with the dead. After a number of highly convincing demonstrations, it is proposed that a Chair of Spiritual Studies be established with a generous donation to the University with the aim of running a series of rigorously controlled scientific experiments under laboratory conditions to test Lafayette's abilities. Who better to watch for evidence of cheating than Parlabane himself?
Jack realises that someone is pulling the wool over his eyes, but who exactly, and for what reason? His efforts to uncover the truth are somewhat hampered by a minor technicality.
He has been murdered.
This could be a problem.
This book is not so much a 'who dunnit' as a 'how they dunnit'. It delves into the murky world of psychics, the people who believe in them and the sceptics who try to sink the unsinkable rubber ducks that keep bobbing back to the surface regardless. The story is related both by the tabloid journalist Jillian Noble as she describes the events that she has witnessed that have convinced her beyond all doubt as to the existence of the paranormal, and by Parlabane who is equally convinced that communication from beyond the grave is impossible. Which begs the question, how is he talking to us, exactly?
Well worth reading, particularly for anyone with an interest in the subject matter.
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