The Anatomy of Ghosts

It's Cambridge University in 1786 and in Jerusalem College one of their privileged young students has gone mad after encountering a ghost.  His wealthy and influential mother wants him cured of his delusion and restored to her at home in London as soon as possible.  To this end Lady Anne Oldershaw hires John Holdsworth, a financially distressed bookseller and the author of the eponymous The Anatomy of Ghosts (#60) a volume debunking the existence of ghosts.  Lady Anne Oldershaw throws in the additional carrot of assessing her late husband's library with an eye to donating it to Jerusalem College.  This part of the commission John is comfortable with, but as he investigates the circumstances surrounding Oldershaw's descent into madness, he is drawn into the mysteries surrounding the exclusive Holy Ghost Society, which seems to have played a key role in events.  How Holdsworth goes about unraveling the threads in this intellectual backwater form the basis for this novel.  The trick is to see if he can accomplish his dual missions without sacrificing his own beliefs and emotions during the unsavory process.

I enjoyed reading this book by Andrew Taylor, even though the ending is not what I had hoped for John Holdsworth.  Mr. Taylor takes his time painting a picture of Cambridge at a time when scholarship for the rich and aristocratic classes was merely a gloss one acquired while developing a social and political network.  The real students were treated as servants and fitted in their studies around waiting on their "betters".  Position was everything and rivalries intense between various factions.  Take your time with this one and you'll discover a whole new perspective on college life.