The growth of spiritualism at the start of the 20th Century and the First World War lead to increased desire to contact the dead.  It also led to an increase in charlatans.  It was a subject that obsessed paper bag salesman Harry Price, who subsequently set himself up as a crusading investigator, determined to expose the fakes from the reality.  Richard Morris attempts a similar task in his biography of Price, sorting the fact from the fiction,  In the process, he reveals a complex man with a passion for self-publicity.

He developed friendships with Houdini and Conan Doyle. In many ways, Morris reveals him to be as much as charlatan as some of the exorcists he exposed. Even to his own wife, he deceived her with the numerous affairs over the years.  It's a well-researched book that lifts the veil on the alleged 'psychic detective', deflating his own myths and reinvention, a trick practiced by certain modern personalities seeking celebrity status.  He comes across as an obsessive showman, always looking for opportunities to make the headlines whether supposedly discovering ancient coins or undertaking scientific studies of mediums at his National Laboratory for Psychical Research Laboratory, or investigating the famous Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England. He would even turn against his own allies in order to grab hoped-for glory.

Harry Price: Psychic Detective is a tightly-woven tale that keeps within the confines of its chosen subject, a credit to Richard Morris' training as investigative journalist and reporter.  He has built up his case study from the extensive notes  and books which Price wrote as well as much of the material from the ghost detective's vast library, now housed at University of London.  Spiritualism may be at the heart of the book, its own credibility is not part of the debate. Whilst Morris delights in bursting Price's hype as a bluffer and conman, he's also admires his strengths as a raconteur, a magician and more importantly, a fully-fledged eccentric. A dual impression that the reader comes to share. However, even at Price's death in 1948, horror novelist Dennis Wheatley was calling for him to receive a knighthood.  Maybe somewhere still, Harry Price is continuing his wily tricks on his unsuspecting fellow spirits.