Roach's follow-up to Stiff (which I commented on here) is written just as well, and Roach is just as entertaining and witty, but the book doesn't work quite so well, principally because of its subject matter.
Stiff was about the varied uses science has made of human corpses over the years; Spook is about attempts to prove the existence of the human soul. Science is the wrong field for study of the soul, though; it's a matter for religion and faith, and attempts to study it using scientific techniques can't help but look foolish. Roach tries to take their work seriously, but her natural skepticism (quite justified in all cases here) shines through, and she never seems as interested in her topic this time around as she did in Stiff.
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