Emily Stewart and her brother Michael are 13-year-old twins, privileged, precocious, wandering aimlessly around their family's Philadelphia estate during the quiet summer of 1925. One day Emily discovers an odd physical tic-she can secretly crack a joint in her ankle so the sound appears to burst through the stillness of midair. Knock, knock . In their garden tea house, Emily and Michael gather the neighbourhood children to fool them with these 'spirit knockings'. But soon this game of contacting the dead creeps into a world of adults still reeling from World War I. When the twins find themselves dabbling in the uncertain territory of human grief and family secrets- knock, knock-their game spins wildly out of control. The Girl Who Would Speak for the Dead is a novel about family secrets, love triangles, missing people. It is about the desperate need to contact the departed, about faith and chicanery, and what we will do for forgiveness.