All the Books.
The David Hammond Collection.
Everybody likes a good ghost story, the sort of thing that could happen to you, could happen to me. Perhaps you already have your own suspicions, no matter how sceptical you are. A house with a bad feel about it for no reason? Maybe just part of a room makes you feel uneasy, so you avoid going there? It is more common than you might think. Is there a place where you feel that you are not alone?
It is these small and ordinary things that David is called to look into, sometimes because they are so persistent that they have become a problem, more often just because people are curious by nature. What he finds is often a simple and harmless story of everyday life. Perhaps there is a historical reason for such a thought, vision, or memory, to be left behind. Sometimes a more recent event. Not all of the unexplained thoughts and sensations that we dismiss as being ghosts, or not ghosts, are from a long time ago.
David does his best to avoid distraction by silly stories and imaginings. If a number of people independently experience the same thing, in the same place, he is more interested in why this happens, than the details of what they imagine they have seen, heard, or felt, because after all, they are just imaginings. Or are they?
David Hammond
Book 1
Edited.
Due for publication.
May 2025
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The Gate in the Shadows
Isle of Skye, March 1961
Billy approaches the grave as her body lies in the ground, not yet covered over. Eirinn’s parents are the only ones who look up as he strides towards the small gathering of mourners.
September 2006
Ghosts do not exist. That is a known fact. So why do so many people want to believe that they do? Trying to answer that question is a much better way to make a living than being an industrial chemist in a dead-end job.
David Hammond certainly thought so, and so far he has been right. Cursed with the sense that sees, hears, feels, all the claptrap that is dismissed as ‘ghosts’, he tries to bring an honest and scientific viewpoint to the bizarre and sometimes fraudulent world of so-called paranormal science.
When he is hired by a former politician, a disgraced former politician who is trying to make a living from writing novels, to visit the remote islands of St. Kilda, far off the west coast of Scotland, it looks like an easy job, and an excuse for a much-needed holiday.
When the politician-turned-writer disappears, and also the boat owner who took them there, and the police want answers, David is the only one left to provide those answers. The trouble is, he knows nothing about the tales of depraved rituals, or of bodies being dug up above the beach, that fill the newspapers as a result of his visit to that rocky isle.
And why is he having those nightmares?
David Hammond
Book 2
Editing Now
Due for publication.
June 2025
Oliver's Voice
Morpeth, Northumberland, March 1902
One child has already been taken from her. Now she can do nothing as her precious son lies in bed, growing weaker with each day that passes. The doctors can do no more. Now only time and prayers can save him.
Morpeth, Northumberland, March 2008
Alex had been hearing the sounds for a few weeks, the awful rasping cough of somebody very sick, but only at night, or if the house was very quiet. At first, he paid no notice. They were ordinary sounds, as quiet as a whisper, but gradually he became aware of the sense of somebody being in the house.
He began to listen for the voice that seemed to come from nowhere, almost found it comforting. It was definitely a voice now, not merely the sounds of somebody unwell, but he could not make out the words. It sounded like a boy of about his own age, something familiar.
Alex’s parents paid little attention. He must be hearing sounds that carried from somewhere, a neighbouring house, or from across the street. Even when Alex claimed to have seen the boy, to have spoken with him, they dismissed such childish imaginings. When he described the life of a boy from more than a century ago, they found it no more than a curiosity, until that is, they found these trivial details of a time long ago, to be undeniably accurate and true.
As Alex became ill, pale and lethargic, finding it difficult to breathe, disbelieving their son and his imaginary friendship began to look more like denial. What was now happening to Alex, had once happened to another boy of his age.
A boy called Oliver.
David Hammond
Book 3
Revised. Awaiting Edit.
Due for publication.
2025
Destruction of Faith
Chicheley, Buckinghamshire, May 1944
George hated the hospital smells, the hours of silence, the loneliness. Visitors came, sometimes, but he wasn’t stupid, he could tell that they were just doing their duty, eager to get away. He couldn’t stay here. He had work to do, important work.
Summertown, Oxfordshire, July 2010
The dental surgery that David went to was nothing like this. Sleek Swedish interior design, a calming environment, luxuriously furnished. Expensive.
He could feel the presence that some patients disliked, even as he entered the reception area. The old house that was buried behind the modern décor may have been tidied away, hidden, but it was not entirely gone. This feeling came from the kitchen, not the consulting room that filled that space now, from the house as it once was. A sensation of despair, of failure, of things left undone.
Removing this dark presence could not be done. The best that David could suggest would be measures to reduce its effects. He may be able to offer more specific advice once he had investigated the cause of this bitter sense of melancholy.
Downing Street, London, July 2010
Errington waited patiently next to the gently ticking clock. He had been served tea and oatcakes in a small office where he could pass the time unseen. When the cabinet meeting was concluded, only the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary would stay behind to be briefed about Operation Nightingale.
David Hammond
Book 4
Revised. Awaiting Edit.
Due for publication.
2025
Darkness in the Forest
Kielder Forest, Northumberland, June 1964
Michael knew that he was going to die here. Maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after. The passage of time no longer mattered. He would join the others who had followed the same path, to become part of the dust that filled this cave.
Wark, Northumberland, June 2012
David and Janet knew that adoption was right. They had moved to Northumberland for a fresh start when David could no longer work, to a house that was too large for two people. Their dream of a family of their own was fading with age. They had the time to give to an older child, who like them needed a fresh start in life, so they were surprised to be introduced to a boy of four, who seemed perfect in every way.
Buying sweets in the village shop after school became a treat that they all enjoyed. A disturbance drew David’s attention as the old and blind woman approached him. Although she could not see, she could sense the presence of the man as he approached the counter, and the small boy next to him. Her daughter, a woman of David’s age, tried to calm her and hold the old woman back, but she fought her way to where David was waiting, his hands full as he approached the checkout.
She had always known that he would come one day. She had been waiting for forty-eight years, but at last he was here, and he would be the one to find Michael.
David Hammond
Book 5
Revised. Awaiting Edit.
Due for publication.
2025
The Walls of Camus Rhea
Camus Rhea, Highland, July 1951
She was only fourteen, and afraid, and now the policeman was dead. They were all too young to know what to do. Donald ran to fetch his father, the only person they could trust with their secret. The policeman’s body must never be found.
Camus Rhea, Highland, October 2016
Juliet stared through the rain and the blackness of the night at what had been their dream home for three years. She could stay in there no longer, so she sat in the car, leaving Paul and Scott to clean up the mess.
Isle of Skye, October 2016
David had not been expecting a visitor. This was only their second stay at their new holiday home, a place to get away from visitors. The man looked troubled, as if he had not slept for some time. He brought a story of things broken, a house disturbed by incidents that he could not explain. David would normally have dismissed such ideas as fantasy, except that Paul did not even seem to know what David did for a living, and when questioned, he seemed too tired for falsehoods. As he made him talk, David realised a connection that Paul clearly did not. Every one of these incidents had been intended to hurt Juliet.
David Hammond
Book 6
Draft
Fully Written
Underwood Park
Friston, East Sussex, August 1845
Isaac felt fear for the first time as he heard the sounds of the sea far below. He had been questioned about Mistress Ingram before the men took him. With his head covered by a heavy cloth bag, he had no idea where they were taking him. Until now.
Friston, East Sussex, March 2017
It was the start of filming for the third series of Ghostwriting. The hotel, formerly the country retreat of Charles Ingram, was reputed to have one of the most easily-seen grey ladies in England. They were here to find out if there was any truth in these sightings, and if so, to try and find out the story behind them.
The grey lady would turn out to be real enough, and her story the very stuff that made Ghostwriting such a success, but David found another drama unfolding as he tried to focus on the mansion’s Victorian past. This was from very recent times, since the house had been transformed into a hotel, just fifteen years earlier.
David did his best to get through filming in the room from where the grey lady was seen, but he simply could not concentrate while seeing events that had taken place at the other end of the house. He was wishing that he had never mentioned it, that they could just finish and leave, but he had been recorded on camera saying there was something going on elsewhere in this vast architectural splendour.
They would have to at least take a look into Room Three.
David Hammond
Book 7
Draft
Fully Written
The Dragon Stone
Moscow, Russia, April 1848
Pavel took the stone to his window, to see better in the light. It should have been perfect, a beautiful and clear diamond. What he saw was a vision from the Devil himself. He wrapped it back in its piece of cloth with shaking hands.
Isle of Skye, March 2023
David had not worked for five years. The virus that had shut down the world had been the final death knell for the programme that he himself had created. He ended the call, having reluctantly agreed to one more series, but deep-down, he knew that it was no more than life-support for something that was already dead.
London, June 2023
It would be a complete waste of time. They were busy, with a schedule to keep to that could not be moved, so how the hell were they supposed to find time to look around a ship in Southampton? Keith had agreed however, so they were stuck with it. David suggested that they should take one camera, one microphone, one presenter, and only for one day. A token effort and no more.
Then more details arrived from the Azeira, due to arrive the day after tomorrow. The suite had been occupied by government minister, Lord Hazelcroft and his wife, when she had gone missing, lost overboard on the Atlantic voyage to New York six weeks earlier. Lady Hazelcroft was believed to have been wearing the famous diamond.
They would be taking the whole crew. Other work could wait. There was more to this than just a dark feeling in one room.
Writing Now.
Godwinson
A historical novel of life in the powerful noble houses of England during one of the most notable periods in British history. From the fragments of information that remain following the great destruction and burning of those times, I have tried to piece together a story of life as it most likely would have happened, as seen through the eyes of those who ruled, and those who were ruled.
The extraordinary story of the rise to power of Harold Godwinson to become King of England spans almost a century before his death at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. When King Edgar unexpectedly died on the 8th of July 975, at the age of only 32, two rival factions took sides against each other, supporting either Edward, a violent boy of thirteen, totally unsuited for the throne, or his brother Æthelred, only 8 years old.
The fissures that were driven deep between the loyalties of rival houses of nobles who were expected to rule the lands on behalf of the King, drove families against each other and split the Church for generations. England grew ever weaker, defenceless against Viking raids, succumbing to the rule of the Danes.
Amidst this turmoil, from almost unknown beginnings, emerged Godwin, son of a mere thegn. When Cnut, King of the Danes seized the English throne in 1016, Godwin was only 15 years old, almost unknown in the royal court. Just two years later he became an earl, the start of a rise to power that would see the House of Godwin ruling more than half of England. His son Harold would be seen as England’s last hope against another invasion from Denmark, and then only three days later, from Normandy.
And he very nearly succeeded.