Ghosts Of The Titanic is a Ghostly Middle School Mystery Novel by Julie Lawson.
Angus Seaton was a sailor working on the Mackay-Bennett, a ship that was part of one of the biggest disasters of the 20th Century, the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The crew of the Mackay-Bennett have been tasked with collecting, documenting, and cataloging all the drowned, dead bodies of the lives lost the night the ship went down. During the process, a mistake is made that ends up haunting Angus for the rest of his life.
Kevin Messenger is a 7-grader in Victoria, British Columbia, who's preparing for summer vacation. In the final weeks, his class has been learning about the Titanic, and even took a field trip to Titanic: The Artefact Exhibition. However, Kevin's summer plans are upset when his dad inexplicably inherits some property in Halifax, Nova Scotia, located at Shearwater Point. Mr. Messenger has decided that the family will be spending the summer fixing the place up.
During his time there, Kevin soon starts to learn about Angus Seaton, and that he had the house left to them after the death of his son, Myles. He also starts seeing a woman there who keeps asking him...
"Where's Michael?"
"What's become of my precious boy?"
"Does he weep for me in the green-black deep?"
"Does he walk on land, searching for me?"
"How will he know me?"
"Well may you sleep, robber of the dead, thief of a lost boy's past."
Between these two, Kevin ends up embroiled in something bigger than he could've imagined.
The book was published on March 1st, 2011.
Ghosts Of The Titanic contains examples of:
- Burial at Sea: The bodies of Titanic victims that the crew of the Mackay-Bennet couldn't identify were listed as numbers, loaded into caskets, and then dumped into the sea at the end of the day after being read their final rights.
- Cassandra Truth: When Kevin tries to tell the crew and passengers he encounters on the Titanic that the ship is about to sink, they laugh it off, since the ship was advertised as unsinkable.
- Dreaming of Times Gone By: Kevin going back in time and being on the Titanic was ultimately a dream he had while he was floating out in the sea.
- Get Out!: After Kevin sings a song about the Titanic in his class, Mrs. Ratchet shouts at him to get out of the classroom.
- Ghostly Goals: The ghost haunting Kevin, and who previously haunted Angus Seaton, simply wanted to know if her baby, Michael, got off of the Titanic safely.
- Mistaken Identity: For the longest time, Angus Seaton thought Michael was body #4, which was buried in a cemetery in Halifax. Then he met a guy who identified himself as Michael, and realized he got the identities mixed up.
- Sinking Ship Scenario: Kevin dreams that he is sent back in time to the exact moment when the Titanic hit the iceberg that sunk it. As a result, he gets caught up in the confusion and panic and chaos that occurred when the Titanic sunk while he's trying to get Annie and Michael to a lifeboat.
- Unexpected Inheritance: The Messenger family ends up inheriting the Seaton estate in Halifax, Nova Scotia, after Angus Seaton's son, Myles, passes away. It was his way of making it up to Michael's descendants after taking the purse of photos that would have identified Annie, and revealed Michael as her son.
- Unfinished Business: Annie's ghost has been haunting Angus Seaton and Kevin to find out what happened to her son, Michael, when the Titanic sunk.
- You Are Number 6: The identification system that the crew of the Mackay-Bennett used to identify the bodies of Titanic victims had any bodies that couldn't be identified (be it by lack of personal ID, or the bodies being too damaged and/or rotted to identify) be listed as numbers.
