A sense of the spiritual is part of what we are. This, combined with a long tradition of telling ghost stories, sets the scene for a collection spanning past and present in terms of literary endeavour. Ghosts are all very different; the supernatural ignores homogeneity. Subtlety tends to dominate in these stories. The supernatural is gently coaxed; we feel shivers rather than terror. Byran McMahon's opening story The Revenants is about grave matters as a family rises from below to review what has changed. It's a shade disappointing, both for them and for us. Such is life. Jennifer Johnston writes in The Theft of a girl ever affected by a ghostly appearance of a child when she was 10 years old. All her life she runs away. Mary Lavin is particularly poignant in confronting bereavement in The Dead Soldier. A son is killed at the Front, his body never recovered. His elderly mother speaks incessantly of him, wishing on All Soul's Night for his return. What happens changes her, surprises us. Adolescent guilt concerns William Trevor in The Death of Peggy Meehan; a music teacher finds her hands are not her own in Lennox Robinson's A Pair of Muddy Shoes, while Elizabeth Bowen uses a pair of gloves to haunting effect in Hand in Glove. Slightly chilling.