"I hate ghosts I've played follow-the-leader with a bunch of dead men, fronted up to a demon with all my runes round the wrong way, been half strangled by a book illustration, nearly killed by a bunyip in a launderette washing machine. So when Raissa invited me to a seance I was sure was a fake but turned out to be real, I knew there could only be trouble for Ernie Pine. And there was-wedging a witch, an apprentice magician, an alcoholic Vietnam veteran and me all too literally between the Devil and the deep blue sea..."