The Comforters

A writer named Caroline Rose is persecuted by a 'typing ghost' who is writing a story about her, even as she composes her own novel. Meanwhile, her fiance, Lawrence Manders, discovers that his elderly grandmother has been involved in diamond-smuggling (with a bizarre crew that sent messages via carrier pigeon). THE COMFORTERS, Muriel Spark's first novel, was highly acclaimed in 1957, when it was published. Like several of her works, the act of writing — and, in particular, of writing this particular book — is part of the plot.