A Ghost in Waiting

Why can't all writers of ghost stories for young people handle the genre as superbly as Hugh Scott? The spareness of his style is like a sublime solo on a musical instrument: it's the spaces between the ideas which are as important as the ideas themselves. Andrew and Rosie's older brother, James, is dead, yet his spirit lingers to protect his fearless younger brother from a centuries-dead bishop who needs the energy from unvanquished souls to remain on the earthly plane. The denouement is as masterly and teasingly oblique as the rest of this utterly addictive narrative.