The Haunting of Alma Fielding

Kate Summerscale Press Reviews

Hidden realities of a different kind lie beneath the story of Kate Summerscale's The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story, which delves into the 1930s case of the Croydon Poltergeist , investigated by Nandor Fodor, chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical Research - Guardian, Autumn highlights

London, 1938, and a young woman begins to experience supernatural events. Is she really haunted, or is something else going on? The author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher investigates - Observer, Autumn highlights

With her eye for evocative period detail, her sensitivity to the quirks and poignancies of human motivation, and her brilliant storytelling skills, Summerscale has taken this corker of a case and made it as gripping as a novel. An engaging, unsettling, deeply satisfying read -- SARAH WATERS The Suspicions of Mr Whicher author returns with another intriguing nonfiction story. It is 1938 and poor old Alma Fielding's home is being disturbed by the Croydon Poltergeist - The Times, Autumn highlights

A page-turner with the authority of history - The Haunting of Alma Fielding will stay with the reader as powerfully as the mystery at the heart of the story. Why should a woman - happily married and moderately well off, smash up her own home blaming a poltergeist. Or, if she was in the grip of another will - who was it? An unvarnished account of unknowable things at a time of deep unease -- PHILIPPA GREGORY Another true-life mystery from the author of The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - Sunday Times, Autumn Highlights

An empathetic, meticulous account of a spiritual unravelling; a tribute to the astonishing power of the human mind - but also a properly absorbing, baffling, satisfying detective story -- AIDA EDEMARIAM

Superb ... The Haunting of Alma Fielding will have you up all night and grip you to your bones ... An extraordinary feat of historical research and imaginative sympathy. Alma emerges from the pages a living, breathing woman - and one you can't forget. Kate Summerscale has another smash hit on her hands -- KATE WILLIAMS

Praise for Kate Summerscale: She has turned a sepia photograph into a film that runs through the mind in glorious and unimpeachable Technicolor -- Rachel Cooke - Observer

Summerscale's brilliance lies in charting, with beautiful precision, a story's strange echoes and reverberations -- Craig Brown - Mail on Sunday

No other writer could have made the case so fascinating and so vivid ... It would be impossible to read this dry-eyed -- Cressida Connolly - Spectator

An extraordinary book which will stay with you - Daily Express

Gripping... Summerscale is an exquisite storyteller. She is judicious in her use of detail, subtle in her unspoken connections between the past and the present -- Daisy Goodwin - The Times

The finest documentary writing -- John le Carre Absolutely riveting -- Sarah Waters - Guardian

As Kate Summerscale has proved before, she has a wonderfully sharp eye for stories which turn out not to be quite what they seem... a remarkably heartening story - Daily Mail

Scrupulous and occasionally startling -- Rachel Cooke - Observer

Simply superb -- Alexandra Harris - Guardian

Extraordinary -- Philippa Gregory - Daily Telegraph

I was hooked after the first few pages. It's as good as non-fiction could possibly get -- Victoria Hislop - Daily Mail

A scalpel-sharp investigative mind -- John Carey - Sunday Times

I can't think of another book which takes you so fast into the smells, tastes and atmosphere of that time -- Doris Lessing Nothing less than a masterpiece -- Craig Brown - Mail on Sunday