The Hungry Ghosts

The Hungry Ghosts
Anne Berry

A novel for those who loved Behind the Scenes at the Museum, The Poisonwood Bible and The Lovely Bones.Raped then murdered in Japanese occupied Hong Kong, 1942, Lin Shui’s ‘Hungry Ghost’ clings tenaciously to life. Holing up in a hospital morgue, destined to become a school, just in time she finds a host off whom to feed. It is 12-year-old Alice Safford, the deeply-troubled daughter of a leading figure in government. The parasitic ghost follows her to her home on the Peak. There, the lethal mix of the two, embroiled in the family’s web of dark secrets and desperate lies, unleashes chaos. All this unfolds against a background of colonial unrest, riots, extremes of weather and the countdown to the return of the colony to China. As successive tragedies engulf Alice, her ghostly entourage swells alarmingly. She flees to England, then France, in a bid to escape the past, only to find her portable ‘Hungry Ghosts’ have accompanied her. It seems the peace she longs for is to prove far more elusive that she could ever have imagined.The Hungy Ghosts is a remarkable tour-de-force of the imagination, full of instantly memorable characters whose lives intermesh and boil over in a cauldron of domestic mayhem, unleashing unworldly spirits into the troubled air.

The Hungry Ghosts

Anne Berry

blue door

For my matchless husband Anthony, and my amazing children, Andrea, Antonia, Ivan and Ruth.

The value of their unflagging support continues to be of inestimable worth to me.

Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com’st in such a questionable shape

That I will speak to thee.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, Act 1, scene 4

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u911ec05c-df40-59fa-8f60-cc5ad46381f6)

Title Page (#u32b3da4b-774a-50f2-8ff2-e33872cf82d3)

Dedication (#u5b8b3df1-d418-5969-9c4e-a47cc404183b)

Epigraph (#ub9b3f120-ae73-5357-9dac-ca00323a7e4a)

Prologue—Ghost (#u2b0cc2b1-013f-56ef-abd8-1f4274da33ff)

Ingrid—2003 (#ud182aaee-172e-5733-8883-fd0d379c2542)

Myrtle—2003 (#u0f463e77-102d-51a2-8175-34e854989144)

Nicola—1965 (#u0a0f3061-619d-566b-aac7-1abe1735e5b0)

Harry—1966 (#u0c2ea685-9116-5dfe-a28a-d25328e49ac0)

Ghost—1967 (#ud1de7039-55ae-577e-a9ed-94b6655f495c)

Ralph—1967 (#uadf17e8a-3e10-5635-b837-3e2ddf2e0a04)

Brian—1970 (#uaa6b81f6-8254-50a3-ae23-facd55bb2b16)

Myrtle—1970 (#u579e595d-5477-54f3-b9bf-4cc50cde251c)

Nicola—1970 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1970 (#litres_trial_promo)

Harry—1970 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1970 (#litres_trial_promo)

Jillian—1971 (#litres_trial_promo)

Myrtle—1971 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1971 (#litres_trial_promo)

Nigel—1971 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ralph—1971 (#litres_trial_promo)

Nicola—1972 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1972 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1972 (#litres_trial_promo)

Myrtle—1972 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ralph—1972 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1972 (#litres_trial_promo)

Myrtle—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ralph—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Myrtle—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Audrey—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1974 (#litres_trial_promo)

Ghost—1975 (#litres_trial_promo)