DANGEROUS GHOSTS and GHOSTS OF THE DEEP: A Double Header by Daniel Cohen

 DANIEL COHEN IS AN AUTHOR I'VE BEEN READING SINCE I WAS A KID. 

He's written more books than you can shake a broomstick at!  The books Cohen writes are geared towards the YA market and usually concern true tales of ghosts, legendary monsters, UFO's and other cool paranormal stuff (plus a few books about horror films).  Cohen is a born storyteller and his books are so nicely written that they read like someone tellling you a scary tale around a campfire.  The little hardcover on hand here is called DANGEROUS GHOSTS and it's from 1996; a little too late for my kid or teen self to have read at the time.  I just picked up a first edition of it (along with a couple other Cohen books) and I must say Cohen is even better than I remember him to be.  DANGEROUS GHOSTS is a collection of 17 ghostly tales averaging about a page and a half to two pages long each which can be sampled one or two at a time or devoured in one sitting (as I did).  There's just something about the economical but vivid way Cohen writes that seems to be something of a lost art of storytelling.  From the dust jacket flap:  

"You can read about the corpselike child that haunted a sickroom, the mummy case that affected all those responsible for removing it from Egypt, and the ghostly dog that inflicted a real bite.  Then there's the sailor, killed by his captain, who refused to leave his murderer until he too was dead, the drunk who met a woman on a lonely road carrying a basket that proved to contain her head, and the car marked with bullet holes whose door flew open every time it passed a cemetery.  These and other spooky tales will make you glance over your shoulder as you read."

Next is another first edition (or first impression as it says inside) of the 1993 hardcover of Daniel Cohen's GHOSTS OF THE DEEP.  If there's anything this ole ghoul loves it's tales of the sea and combine that with ghosts and you have me in the palm of your claw.  According to Goodreads, Daniel Cohen and his wife Susan (an accomplished writer in her own right) live in the nautical town of Cape May Court House, New Jersey so we're practically neighbours!!!  From the dust jacket flap:

"Why did three Scottish lighthouse keepers disappear, the first ever to abandon their posts?  Had it something to do with the lifeboat full of ghostly rowers seen heading for the lighthouse the night it went dark?  How could Admiral Sir George Tryon be seen greeting his guests at a party in his elegant London home when at that moment his body lay at the bottom of the Mediterranean with over three hundred of his men?  And what was the mysterious hammering sound that preceded every disaster that befell the unlucky iron-hull The Great Eastern?  Could someone be trapped inside the hull?  Sailors have always had a rich tradition of ghostly lore, and you can find many of the finest, scariest and best-authenticated accounts in this book.  Are they true?  That, shipmates, is something you will have to decide for yourselves."

I tell ya, if I had 100 of these Daniel Cohen books, it still wouldn't be enough for me!