Thrilling tales of the supernatural

Dec 2 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

Author Francis Cottam has reincarnated himself as a bravura ghost story writer. Peter Elson has a séance with the Southport-born novelist

FORGET the high street decorations and stuffing a turkey – what we all need at Christmas is a good ghost story.

For those saving on electricity in these hard times, the perfect companion in the light of a guttering candle is FG Cottam’s new spine-chilling page-turner.

Dark Echo is Southport’s answer to the Da Vinci Code – and for me, much more enjoyable. After all, Dan Brown didn’t criticise Sefton Council, bemoan the loss of Southport’s lido and quote fictional extracts from the Liverpool Daily Post in his blockbuster.

A beautifully-written, superior supernatural thriller, Dark Echo dons the mantle of past great British adventure writers. He is a natural heir of Rider Haggard, Conan Doyle and Buchan, via the Edwardian master ghost story writer, MR James.

FG Cottam previously wrote under his full name of Francis Cottam, penning entertaining and thought-provoking wartime adventures such as Hamer’s War and Slapton Sands. Understandably disappointed about the lack of promotion of these finely-turned books, with their themes of love and war, a new publisher meant a new direction.

“As I’d written about a haunted house in my first book as FG Cottam, House of Lost Souls, why not write about a cursed boat for my second?” says Francis, 51.

“I like ghost stories and enjoy the frisson of fear and the unknown, so I changed to FG Cottam as it was completely different subject matter.”

So far, House of Lost Souls has been translated into eight languages, including, crucially, German with its big market. It will be launched in the US in spring and the film rights are being optioned.

For Dark Echo, Francis commandeers his Southport hometown to full Gothic effect, flipping back and forth between the 1920s and the present. He calls up the ghosts of those lost landmarks, the much-mourned Bathing Pool and the deeply-haunted Birkdale Palace Hotel.

While visiting his family in Southport last November, with the January deadline looming for this second novel, fate directed him to the resort’s Atkinson Art Gallery.

The discovery of wonderfully evocative art deco posters of Southport’s heyday, painted by Fortunino Matania, coalesced with an old idea for a pivotal character.