Ghost finder Thomas Carnacki is a little peeved to discover that there are others investigating the weird events at Castle Kraighten…

William Hope Hodgson’s spectral investigator has turned up a few times in the extended Doctor Who universe (as well as receiving readings of his stories from Big Finish courtesy, slightly ironically given his appearance here, of Dan Starkey). Andrew Cartmel paired him with the second Doctor for a Telos novella, while Guy Adams brought him into contact with Iris Wildthyme and Panda in 2012. This story, also by Adams, is set early on in his career when he’s, not to put too fine a point of it, something of a blithering idiot – and you do sympathise with the Paternoster Gang’s desires for him to be somewhere else… anywhere else!

If you know the Carnacki tales, you’ll get more out of some of the audio trickery that Adams employs, but even for those unfamiliar, there’s some clever moves that deliberately wrongfoot the listener. Adams draws to a certain extent on his own back catalogue as well – some of the setup is reminiscent of the first novels of his I read, nearly a decade ago (an excellent duology for Angry Robot) – but by putting the Paternoster Gang front and centre (and particularly Strax’s way of dealing with recalcitrant masonry!) it has a very different feel.

Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart and Dan Starkey all play their roles with a little more venom here – for reasons that do become clear – while Joe Jameson’s Carnacki is pitched perfectly for the tale. Joe Kraemer has some interesting challenges in the sound design, and rises to them well!

Verdict: A rather different investigation for the Gang works well. 8/10

Paul Simpson

Click here to order The Paternoster Gang Heritage Two from Big Finish