Review: Quacks  galore! Trust Nobody!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2014
This is a delightful book suitable for anyone over the age of twelve. Fourteen year-old Kate finds herself with an Uncle as a guardian who hardly ever sees her and Miss Grey as a keeper. Her mother has recently died, but she was prevented from seeing the body or going to the funeral, but she knew her mother believed in séances, so she is determined to try to talk to her mother. She finds a letter in a music box that says, "Trust nobody", followed by pages of cipher code. Everybody is trying to get hold of this letter, but because she attributes it to her mother, she hides it.  Everybody seems to be against her, including a villain who tries to steal her letter and a Dr Merriwether, who runs a sanatorium for the insane, and since his income increases with more patients, he is quite happy to declare anyone insane. It is then that Kate experiences the occult, but also meets Tom, and members of the Ghost Club, a number of boys who provide "ghost effects" at séances.The story is well-written, the plot develops at a rate that ensures interest is maintained, it has a nice take on the quackery and fraud that can arise, and seems to give a nice picture of the period. One or two parts of the plot have slightly questionable logic, such as when Tom meets Kate the first time, but these have little effect on the pleasure of the book. I highly recommend this book for those who have any "young at heart" left in them.