These books are not just gleefully macabre chances for kids to read what their parents might not let them watch on television. There is always a message, be it implied or overt. This is blatant in second-person perspective adventures, where authors decide which choices get you killed and which take you to a more satisfying denoument; the difference between one choice and another is the message. It also happens in every book where sneaking into a haunted house, toying with a strange ancient heirloom or breaking some other rule unleashes supernatural horrors; whether or not the protagonist(s) escape, there is often an authority figure warning against the adventure, or some feeling at the end that it all should have been avoided if only for the good of deceased supporting characters. While Spirit has been published at a different time and has been angled toward the more mature twelve-and-ups, it appears to carry a similar cautionary message.

Tess and Tobias Goodraven are the ghost-hunting orphan protagonists of the story, which takes place in 19th-century America. Already married at age sixteen, they share a passion for the cello as well as the morbid; after a seance and a ghostly encounter in a graveyard give them a taste of ghostly possession, they find themselves attuned to the dead in a manner reminiscent of tv series Ghost Whisperer. They become addicted to the thrill of these encounters, and before long are on the way to Blackthorne, a town near Salem. Tess is interested in a winter carnival the new residents of the town are using to start again after a series of mysterious problems wiped out its original population one century earlier, but Tobias has his mind on witches who fled there from Salem and were eventually killed – including a mysterious “First Accused” of the Salem Witch Trials whose name was stricken from records and who was actually guilty.

After a brief introduction to some supporting characters, including some college boys, other married couples, and witch hunters, the train derails. Tess and Tobias struggle to protect themselves, the survivors, and a ghostly young couple from Widow Malgore, the beast-like “First Accused”. They find the survivors may not be as alive as they think they are, the young ghostly couple have an agenda beyond defeating the witch, and they may have toyed with powers far beyond their capacity for resistance.

The underlying message seems to be this: Though you are a young thrillseeker, you should never mess the abnormal or the perverse. If you do, terrible things will likely happen to you. Many characters who die in this story follow that pattern, from a man who delights in selling the art of infamous killers to three college students in a love triangle. The message is toothless when everyone knows that terrible things can happen to normal people as well, but it is there.

The fact that the ghost couple, Wilhelm and Abigail, have a hidden agenda is a welcome concept. These are not docile spirits who bother the paranormally-gifted few in order to resolve unfinished business and pass on, as Tess and Tobias mistakenly think. Not having a life in the world together is their “unfinished business”, and they plan to rectify being dead by permanently possessing a couple spiritually attuned enough to help them rid themselves of that nasty witch first. Tess and Tobias think of their addiction to channeling as an ability missing to other people, and fail to consider it a possible weakness except in humour, which plays to the ghosts’ advantage.

Among those many ignored adults who warned the Goodravens that their fascination would be trouble is their butler, Horrick. He is introduced like a potentially relevant character, possibly a future protagonist saver or comic relief, but don’t get your hopes up like I did; it turns out he is only anything at all for the stretch of a chapter, if that. He is, just like the cemetery-keeper earlier in the story, there largely to tell the characters that what they’re doing is wrong. If only those wild Goodravens listened to their elders.