Summerscale's latest is immersive in detail, letting the reader feel as if they're in the room with Alma Fielding, the investigators, and her poltergeist. But at times, it feels as if the author has lost her way, reveling in the narrative, but not providing as much analysis of the haunting and its larger meaning for society.

...Summerscale has produced a thoroughly engrossing tale about the power of trauma and how the past can haunt us all... Full review to appear in Booklist.

This is a very well-researched, well-written account of the investigation of one woman’s poltergeist. All the same, I read the book with mounting distaste for the subjects and horror at the way psychoanalysis was so cavalierly used by an untrained person to attempt to “cure” an obviously disturbed woman.
Summerscale effectively portrays the frightening mood of the supernatural juxtaposed with the anxiety of pending war.