This autumn’s crime fiction visits the Isle of Man and enters the Big Brother house

Phil Rickman isn’t unusual among crime writers for mingling supernatural elements with earthly crimes. What makes him different is his way of grounding his novels in the real world, and of bringing a wry sense of humour to his other-worldly themes. His latest novel, Night After Night (Atlanti, £18.99, Spectator Bookshop, £16.99) is a wonderful example of his ability to pull off this fiendishly difficult combination.

A TV production company hires a journalist, Grayle Underhill, to research Knap Hall, a reputedly haunted country house with a chequered history. Its most recent owner, the world-famous model and film star Trinity Ansell, died in tragic circumstances. Trinity was obsessed with the house and its rumoured connection with Catherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last wife, who died at nearby Sudeley Castle.

The production company plans to use the house to film a reality TV series named Big Other, a version of Celebrity Big Brother, in which seven needy B-list celebrities — a volatile mix of sceptics and believers — explore the ghostly presences of Knap Hall. The narrative deals both with the making and broadcasting of the programme. Passions run high among the warring celebrities as they are forced to confront crimes, culminating in murder, past and present.

Rickman is a writer who constantly comes at his readers from unexpected angles. He also gives an informed and remarkably perceptive account of what lies behind reality TV. (Grayle muses at one point that television ‘both amplifies and nullifies reality’.) Big Other is hailed as rivetting viewing, though not for the reasons its producers expected. Night After Night is simply a riveting novel.

They do things differently on the Isle of Man. Hop-tu-Naa is the Manx equivalent of Hallowe’en; it has its own traditions, which Chris Ewan exploits in his latest novel Dark Tides (Faber, £14.99,