Belfast, 1914. Two years after the sinking of the Titanic, high society has become obsessed with spiritualism, attending séances in the hope they might reach their departed loved ones.
William Jackson Crawford is a man of science and a sceptic, but one night with everyone sitting around the circle, voices come to him – seemingly from beyond the veil – placing doubt in his heart and a seed of obsession in his mind. Could the spirits truly be communicating with him or is this one of Kathleen’s parlour tricks gone too far?
Based on the true story of Professor William Jackson Crawford and famed medium Kathleen Goligher, and with a cast of characters including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini, The Spirit Engineer conjures a haunted, twisted tale of power, paranoia and one ultimate, inescapable truth…
Halloween is almost upon us so the perfect time to read a chilling gothic thriller. I am an avowed sceptic but I'm fascinated by the popularity of spiritualism in the past, especially as the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became one of the leading voices of the spiritualist movement. Conan Doyle has a small part to play in The Spirit Engineer, alongside Harry Houdini who spent his latter years debunking spiritualists. However, while William Jackson Crawford was also once known for his investigations into the paranormal, he has since been largely forgotten. A.J. West uses real-life people and events to weave a compulsively unsettling tale which is as fiendishly imaginative and artful as any trickery performed by a skilled medium.
The start of the book is also an end, with an anguished William Jackson Crawford alone on Pickie Rocks in Bangor in 1920. He recalls the once-promising words, "death is a beginning" and so the narrative then takes up back to Belfast in 1914 to discover what leads him to his lonely tormented suicide six years later. Crawford is a singular, undeniably challenging figure but despite his increasingly erratic, cruel behaviour, A.J. West still manages to elicit sympathy for this deeply flawed man amidst his relentless descent into obsessive paranoia.
This is a darkly brooding tale which is thoroughly unnerving at times but for all the questions raised about the veracity of paranormal entities, it's really a searingly perceptive exploration of human behaviour. Grief permeates the novel throughout and of course, in 1914 sudden, brutal loss became more prevalent than ever. The storyline is set shortly after the Titanic sank and Belfast, the birthplace of the supposedly unsinkable ship, is still shamed by her demise. Meanwhile, violence due to the Home Rule Crisis is worsening with 'Belfast growing menacing as though, in hiding its own madness, the city might scream at any moment.’ With the benefit of hindsight, readers are also painfully aware that the Great War will shortly claim unimaginable numbers of young souls. It’s no wonder then that people were more desperate than ever for a message or sign from beyond the veil.
The Crawfords have their own burden of grief and there are some heartrendingly emotional scenes which empathetically explain how a man of science may come to not just accept, but wholeheartedly endorse something he'd previously declared the work of charlatans. Unsurprisingly, this character-driven novel focuses on Crawford, with his first-person perspective providing a grim ringside seat into his inevitable decline but the secondary cast of characters are superbly brought to life too. Kathleen is mysteriously enigmatic, Crawford's colleagues an accurate reflection of ebullient believers and unwavering deniers, while Lady Adelia Carter is suitably waspish. Although sinister and harrowing themes are examined throughout The Spirit Engineer, this is an astutely witty read too, most notably in the beautifully observed dialogue.
Abounding with shocking revelations, particularly as the brilliantly inventive plot reaches its feverish conclusion, this magnificently compelling book terrifies and teases right up to the final page. The Spirit Engineer is a remarkable debut and A.J. West is most certainly an author to watch. I cannot recommend it highly enough!
The Spirit Engineer is published by Duckworth Books, purchasing links can be found here.
About the Author
A.J.West is an award-winning former BBC journalist, radio broadcaster and voice artist from Buckinghamshire. He has also written for national newspapers and magazines and has appeared on national television programmes, including BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, This Morning and the legendary reality television show, Big Brother, where he became an instant household name… though the specific household is yet to be identified.
The son of three primary school teachers, he grew up reading books to escape his shyness at school and discovered an early talent for writing which took him around the world producing popular news programmes and documentaries. In 2020, he was signed to the venerable publisher of historical fiction, Duckworth Books, who describe his writing as gothic, artful and thoroughly-researched.
Today, A.J. lives in South London with his husband, Nicholas Robinson.
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