Ghosts opens with a shipwreck, leaving a party of sightseers temporarily marooned on an island. The stranded castaways make their way towards the refuge of the isle’s reclusive savant; but the big isolated house which is home to Professor Silas Kreutznaer and his laconic assistant, Licht, is also home to another, unnamed presence . . .

Onto this seemingly haunted island, where a strange singing hangs in the air, John Banville drops a scrumptious cast of characters – including a murderer – and weaves a tale where the details are clear but the conclusion polymorphous – shifting appearances, transformations and thwarted assumptions make this world of uneasy calm utterly enthralling.

‘As fascinating, complex, stimulating and energetic as any work of art . . . A work which proves Banville as a master, the artist in total control of his craft’ – The Times

‘John Banville’s funniest book . . . another triumph by our most outrageously inventive and daring novelist’ – The Sunday Independent

‘Makes this astonishingly attractive novelist one of the most important writers now at work in English – a key thinker, in fact, in fiction’ – The London Review of Books

Now part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the very best of modern literature.

As fascinating, complex, stimulating and energetic as any work of art . . . A work which proves Banville as a master, the artist in total control of his craft. * The Times *
John Banville’s funniest book . . . another triumph by our most outrageously inventive and daring novelist. * Sunday Independent *
Makes this astonishingly attractive novelist one of the most important writers now at work in English – a key thinker, in fact, in fiction. * London Review of Books *
A beautiful, beguiling book full of resonances that continue to sound long after you’ve turned the final page. Its imagining is magical, its execution dazzlingly skilful. * Sunday Tribune *

John Banville was born in Wexford, Ireland, in 1945. He is the author of many highly acclaimed and prize-winning novels including The Sea, which won the 2005 Booker Prize, and the Revolutions, Frames, and Cleave trilogies. He has been awarded the Franz Kafka Prize and a literary award from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Dublin.