Crap Ghosts by Gavin Inglis

This is the second edition (or “second apparition”) of Gavin Inglis’s collection, Crap Ghosts. Six new stories have been added to the original ten, and I will note the reprints as I come to them. On balance, if you enjoyed the first edition, then it’s probably worth getting your hands on this one for the new material. If you haven’t got the first edition, then you will probably only have come across some of the stories if you’ve heard one of Inglis’s many readings, as none of them seem to have been printed elsewhere.

“Beyond The Grave” (reprint) starts both editions, and features a ghost so crappy that it might not even exist. A sceptic at a clairvoyant’s public show is surprised to find that there is a message from beyond the grave for her. It’s from her budgie. This one’s short and funny, as are most of the stories in the collection, although it’s hardly the strongest one here.

“Ghost Of a Chance” (reprint) deals with an encounter with a dead gambler in Las Vegas. The ghost seems finally to have discovered a system that works, but is it too late for him? Only about two pages long and again hinges successfully on a punch line.

“Miner Apparition” concerns a cave-in down t’pit. Deborah receives a phone call telling her that her son didn’t make it out, and then she receives a visitation from him. All he wants is breakfast, much to her consternation. It’s slightly too obvious to the reader what is happening, but fun can be found in working out why.

“Tea In The Attic” (reprint) has an old woman telling her granddaughter about a haunted teapot that has been possessed by a former lover. It’s a piece that plays on our nostalgic views of older generations, but its wit saves it from sentimentality.

“The Seaside Poltergeist” (reprint) has an investigator looking for evidence of the supernatural in a coastal house. Initial results suggest that a poltergeist may be at work, but is there a more prosaic explanation? This is one of the few stories where the twist at the end will leave the reader with a feeling of being slightly cheated.

In a collection noteworthy for the shortness of its stories, “Priestley Phantom” (reprint) stands out. The action takes place in a seedy hotel, but there’s obviously not much else I can say about it short of reprinting the entire piece. It’s a drabble (a story of exactly a hundred words), and it relies on a truly appalling pun. There is a subtle hint of what’s to come in the title, but it’s easily the sort of thing that can earn an author a punch in the face.

“Haunted Hoover” is about a Hoover that doesn’t like being replaced by a Dyson and builds wonderfully as the owner attempts to get the thing out of his life. It successfully manages to be both creepy and humorous.

“Polterfife” is heavy with Scottish east coast dialect but light on content. A disappointing shaggy dog story.

“Ghostly Benefactor” (reprint) probably has the strongest “yuck” factor in the collection. A new teacher arrives at a girls school and discovers that they are haunted by the ghost of an elderly gentleman. The residents are quite proud of the fact and the ghost doesn’t cause any bother. The new teacher decides to investigate and discovers that there is a much more mundane explanation.

“Irreverent Revenant” (reprint) is slight, even for a story of two pages. A watchman at an Edinburgh cemetery meets a ghost who tells him to go and look under a certain rock on a beach where he will find his fortune. It’s basically little more than a joke.

“The Phantom Pilot of Pentecost Island” deals with a ghost who has to take over a plane during an emergency landing. The air traffic controller remembers that the same person had to land a plane during similar circumstances twenty years ago. But what happened then?

In “Revenge on Regent Street” (reprint), a man has to play a ghost from his past at Monopoly. It’s excellent fun if you know the game (and who doesn’t?).

It’s a haunted piece of furniture in “Ottomanifestation,” although it’s not an ottoman, as one of the stoner characters points out. The stool in question does seem to be possessed by the spirit of an Ottoman Turk, though, and it goes wild when it hears Dervish music on the stereo. It’s a great little story, and it also happens to have one of the funniest last lines that I have ever read.

“Breathtaking Wonders of the Hidden Red Pavilion” (reprint) is the only story in the collection that doesn’t rely on humour. In fact, it is hard to tell what it does rely on as it is almost impenetrable. A Chinese man loses his wife and is thereafter subjected to a series of baffling visitations and instructions in his quest to recover her. A Zen koan of a story.

“Ethernet” is a delight. An investigator tackles a ghost who has been indulging in illegal file sharing in a story that packs a surprising amount of pathos into its plot.

“8.15 To Doom” (reprint) finds a passenger travelling between Edinburgh and Glasgow on a train that seems doomed to repeat a crash of exactly a century earlier. That is, if another, ghostly, passenger is to be believed. The suspense builds nicely until the resolution.

There you have it. If you like humorous fiction, can handle puns without vomiting, and don’t get annoyed at twist endings, then you’ll have fun. Inglis is a fine writer beneath all the tricks. If humour’s not high on your agenda, then you’d probably best avoid this and hunt down something with more competent ghosts instead.

Publisher: Skeleton Press (May 2007)
Price: £5.00
Paperback: 64 pages
ISBN: 978-1-906252-00-7