If you like to feel your blood curdling, or your spine tingling, then these creepy goings-on in Devon and Dorset, described in two new books, are a must.

In a fascinating piece of research, Patricia Gray, the Plymouth author of a number of books on local history, tells the grisly stories of Devon bodysnatchers, especially Irishman Thomas Vaughan who, for 13 years in the early 19th century, made a career of delivering fresh corpses to some of the most eminent surgeons in England.

Vaughan, finally arrested in Devonport in 1830 and charged with digging up two bodies from a burial ground, was tried and sentenced to transportation to Tasmania. Patricia deftly fills in the background to the gruesome wave of graverobbing which swept the country at this time as doctors craved corpses for medical school examination and dissection. Meanwhile, Julie Harwood, of Poole, Dorset, a member of the Southern Paranormal Research and Investigation Group (SPRIG), has a collection of ghostly tales and legends from Dorchester giving a new slant to the history of this venerable county town.

Discover the ghost of its most famous son, Thomas Hardy, said to pace restlessly near his statue in Colliton Walk, or the shade of Hanging Judge Jeffreys which haunts the building where he lodged in High West Street, now a restaurant and coffee house.

SPRIG have investigated some of the locations that Julie includes.

Graverobbers & Bodysnatchers in Devon is published by Halsgrove at £8.99, and Haunted Dorchester by the History Press at £9.99.