The Warm Hands of Ghosts

Arden’s (The Winter of the Witch) latest follows heroic army nurse Laura Iven, who is honorably discharged from her position in Belgium and sent home to Halifax. There she receives her brother Freddie’s soldier trunk; the mysterious contents lead her to believe that he may not have died in battle as she had presumed. Hoping to find answers, Laura volunteers to return to the front. Alternating chapters relay Freddie’s story months earlier, wherein he and a German soldier named Hans form a bond after being trapped in a German bunker. The three characters independently meet an ominous figure named Falond, a fiddler of local lore said to steal men’s souls. Is he just a man, or perhaps the devil himself? As Laura’s search deepens, the characters’ stories intertwine until the shocking conclusion. January LaVoy is adept in her portrayal of Laura, who is desperate to find her brother amid the horrors of World War I. Michael Crouch skillfully portrays the lost Freddie, who is transfixed by the supernatural world and may be too far gone to save. The audio production is superb.