Hairbrush and the Shoe

When a workman is pushed and hissed at by something invisible on the <br>stairs of her family's 150-year-old townhouse Jeanne Stanton must <br>confront the possibility that a ghost inhabits. She proceeds in the way <br>any former Harvard Business School case writer would: she embarks upon a<br> rigorous search for proof of the ghost's existence and identity <br>exploring the literature and lore of ghosts; the practices of mediums <br>psychics and ghost busters; and the various attempts that have been <br>made over the decades to verify ghostly sounds and sights through <br>scientific methods. After visits to a psychic provide insights but not <br>proof Stanton enters the equally mysterious realms of physics and <br>neurology hoping science has answers. <p/><br> <p/> <p/><br>Notables encountered during her research efforts include Henry James <br>Arthur Conan Doyle Oliver Sacks and Sigmund Freud the latter a <br>colleague of her home's original owner. Wry and witty Stanton takes <br>time out to laugh at her own futile attempts at ghost detection--spending<br> a sleepless night in an allegedly haunted bedroom creeping along the <br>edges of rooms in search of cold spots--along the way. Determined to get <br>to the bottom of the ghost business Stanton wavers between skepticism <br>and belief searching for definitive evidence--and almost failing to find<br> it. Almost.