Crap Ghosts by Gavin Inglis

Crap Ghosts, as its name suggests, is a collection of short stories based around the theme of inept hauntings by inadequate spooks. These are the kind of ghosts who really were late for their own funerals. Up-and-coming author Gavin Inglis blends Scottish humour with slightly surreal twist-in-the-tale yarns – imagine Rab.C.Nesbitt wandering into an episode of The Twilight Zone as directed by Salvador Dali. It's a unique approach that produces original results - not many books would include a scene with a man wrestling a possessed vacuum cleaner whilst wearing nothing but tartan boxer shorts. Inglis specialises in flash fiction - short stories of less than a thousand words. The trouble with humorous flash fiction is that it can have more in common with funny wedding speech anecdotes than fully realised narratives. Crap Ghosts suffers from this at times. This said, Inglis is blessed with the sort of spot-on comic timing that's given to few wedding speakers, and there are some real gems – his pastiche of ancient Chinese folklore, for instance, is inspired. While not for everyone, this first collection from independent publishers Skeleton Press will appeal to anyone who's ever wished that Christopher Brookmyre would write a really good ghost story. [Debbie Martin]