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Description:

Scepter Rand is a beautiful psychic who heads up “The Spookies,” a paranormal investigation team with a truckload of modern ghost-hunting equipment. Assisted by the spirit of her late butler, Fishwick, Spector and her two partners, ex-police officer Pete Brennan and wheeler-dealer Kevin Keeley, are hot on the trail of a dangerous poltergeist. Their investigation leads them to the northern moors of England and Melmerby Manor, a brooding 18th century estate overflowing with pirated DVDs. When the DVDs are swapped for a dead body, The Spookies team is fingered for the crime.

Now they must race against time to prove their innocence by trying to make sense of ghostly text messages, crazed drivers determined to run them off the road and an enraged spirit seeking revenge for his untimely death. Their investigation draws them into a world of seedy mobsters, millionaire pirated movie producers, a gutter journalist looking for a story at any cost, and the grumbling spirits of an English stately home.

But it’s all just another night’s work for The Spookies team in this supernatural mystery that will tickle your funnybone while doling out a healthy measure of goosebumps.

Excerpt:

"Quiet," Scepter interrupted urgently. "I thought I heard something."

With the total blackness of a foggy night on the outside and the meager lighting on the inside, the hall had taken on a new, more sinister aura. Faces on portraits lining the grand staircase had developed a Baskervillian air, as if they were ready to leap from their frames and tear out the living hearts of anyone foolhardy enough to pass. At the top of the curving staircase, distant lamps cast elongated shadows of banister rails, like the grotesque bars of a supernatural prison that held unspeakable horrors for the unwary inmate. Silence hung in the tense air: a spine-chilling stillness, broken only by the cry of the moorland wind and the sound of whale song from Kevin's CD player. Then, into the night came a distant bump that might have been a rumble of thunder, or the movement of furniture closer to home.

Pete strained his ears. "Will you shut that row up?"

"I haven't said anything," Kevin protested.

"Not you, that crap on your CD player."

The immensity of the entrance hall, its age, grandeur and dark corners' particularly its dark corners' gave Kevin the jitters. Glad to be out of it, he hurried back into the cafeteria and made for the CD player. He was halfway there when the machine ejected the CD and threw it across the room at him like a razor-edged discus, its polished surface glittering in the half-light of the room.

"Aargh!"

"Now what?" asked Pete as he and Scepter hurried back in. They found Kevin cowering near the cash register at the end of the service counter.

"What's up?" asked Scepter.

"Th-the C-C-CD. It came out of the machine and nearly cut my head off.?"

Pete picked up the disc. "Well you always said that machine was a bit iffy."

"I was nowhere near it," Kevin cried. "It was as if someone picked it up and threw it at me like a Frisbee."

Scepter was delighted. "Sir Henry! The poltergeist!"

"What?" Kevin demanded, taking instant umbrage. "He doesn,t like whales? Maybe I should have left Abba on. Maybe he's got a thing for blondes with big boobs, too. Or maybe he just didn't like my face, and decided to cut my head off!" As he spoke, his voice became wilder, closer to the edge of hysteria.

In an effort to calm him down, Pete pointed out, "It's a CD, not an axe."

Kevin scowled and held up his hand. "I've cut my finger on them before today."

His best friend began to lose his cool. "Well, if he did cut your head off, at least you'd lose twenty pounds of unsightly fat."

"Will you two shut up?" snapped Scepter. "You're like children fighting over an ice cream." She concentrated on Kevin. "Tell me exactly what happened."

"I just told you," Kevin insisted. "I came through the door. The music stopped, the CD ejected and flew at me. What more can I tell you? It only just missed me."

Scepter raised her eyebrows at the doubting Pete, who shrugged his broad shoulders and said, "I think he's talking out of his backside, as usual. It makes no sense. I think that business in the cellar and things going bump in the night are getting to him. He was never the bravest man in the world, and this place is giving him the heebie-jeebies."

Scepter mulled Pete's words for a moment. "You think Kevin ejected the CD himself?"

"Yes."

"Pete," Kevin pleaded, "I tell you, I was nowhere near it."

?"You think you weren't," said Pete, "but I think your imagination's playing you up."

"Quiet, the both of you." Scepter's authoritarian tones cut them off. "I shall consult Fishwick." She paused a moment and then called into thin air, amusing both men. "Fishwick, are you there?"

"Here, Modom."

"Fishwick, there has just been an incident here in the cafeteria, with a compact disc. Was it anything to do with any of the entities here?"

"I don't know Modom, but it's possible. There are several spirits abroad right now. I was at the other end of the house when I heard you call."

"Thank you, Fishwick. I may need you, so I'd be grateful if you could stay close by." Scepter brought herself back to the real world and confronted her partners'stupid grins. "Fishwick doesn't know what happened here. He was at the other end of the house."

"Well, that's it, then," chuckled Pete. "If old Fish Slice doesn't know; who does?"

"Pete, your skepticism is becoming tedious."

"Scepter, your games are becoming dafter."

"You could try to be more constructive," she suggested.

Pete remained obdurate. "I'm trying to be realistic."

The computer emitted a loud beep and ended the argument. They rushed to it and studied the display, where a red warning was flashing ACTIVE, ACTIVE. Kevin clicked on it, and the main menu came up, highlighting zone four.

"Sensor triggered," he said, studying the other menu items, all of which remained passive. "It's in the master bedroom."

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