The indigo ghosts

Clare consistently offers provocative, unusual stories, but her latest, set in Britain in 1604 and featuring physician Gabriel Taverner, is a real standout. Taverner, a former sailor, is surprised to receive a summons from his old captain, Ezekiel Colt, requesting his help aboard the Falco. When Gabe visits the ship on which he once sailed, he is met with a bizarre tale. Ezekiel and his crew claim the ship is haunted, with the hallucinatory sights, sounds, and smells they are experiencing seeming to emanate from a tiny space under the deck. What Gabe discovers is horrendous, but the aftermath is worse, combining piracy, brutality, betrayal, religious persecution, ancient magic, and, yes, the prospect of unimaginable treasure. Gabe's first priority is to help the small band of victims and then to understand the truth behind their mind-boggling story. A gripping and unique page-turner that juxtaposes brutal realism with an astonishing, otherworldly, magical adventure.

Set in 1604, Clare's excellent third novel featuring former ship's surgeon Gabriel Taverner (after 2018's The Angel in the Glass) takes Taverner to Plymouth, England, where his former captain, Ezekiel Colt, needs his help. During the recent voyage home of Colt's ship, the Falco, from the Caribbean and the Spanish Main, a series of strange events happened. These include a storm Colt believed was unnatural in origin, a crew terrified for no apparent reason, and his own witnessing of several blue-skinned ghosts. The ship's surgeon, Taverner's successor, insisted that the blue ghosts weren't real, went mad, and cried out "I see you!" before jumping overboard and drowning. The rational Taverner is unnerved when he has a vision of a crocodile in the Falco's hold, where he and the captain a short time later find the impaled corpse of a long-dead woman. More bodies turn up as Taverner and his capable sister, Celia, investigate. Clare matches well-drawn characters, in particular the charismatic lead, with a head-scratching puzzle and creepy atmospherics. Imogen Robertson fans will be pleased. Agent: Sophie Gorell Barnes/MBA Literary. (June)

October 1604 see a ship come home from the Caribbean with a traumatized crew, a foreshadowing of more danger to come. Gabriel Taverner, who once served as doctor on the Falco, is called upon by captain Ezekiel Colt to help his crew after a harrowing voyage home haunted by blue-tinted ghosts. Initially skeptical about the crew's visions, the ship's current doctor threw himself overboard as they approached England. When Taverner and the captain search the ship, they find a hidden compartment holding the mummified body of a tiny woman and signs that several people were hidden there during the voyage. Taverner gets his friend Theophilus Davey, a coroner, to remove the body so he can examine it, taking a small sample from a stained area of her robe. Ironically, that's all that remains when the body is stolen. A competent herbalist friend warns the sample is powerful and dangerous. Taverner's friend Jonathan Carew, the vicar of St. Luke's, tries to help make sense of what they've seen. Taverner knows the stowaways must have been desperate to make the harrowing voyage, which could easily have resulted in their deaths. Looking for clues, he and his clever sister, Celia, pore over his diaries of his own trips to the Caribbean and his findings on ancient religious practices, but as a rational man, he finds it hard to imagine supernatural explanations for his bad dreams and his constant feeling of being watched. A bone-chilling metaphysical mystery larded with historical detail. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.