Pretty Little Dead Things

Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

Mashing together the grittiest British police procedural with dark supernatural terror, author Gary McMahon creates a refreshingly new take on horror fiction.

FILE UNDER: Horror [See the Dead / Skin Trade / Beyond Reality / A Sacrifice]

THOMAS USHER HAS A MOST TERRIBLE TALENT.

Following a car crash in which his wife and daughter are killed, he can see the recently departed, and it's not usually a pretty sight. When he is called to investigate the violent death of the daughter of a prominent local gangster, Usher's world is torn apart once more. For the barriers between this world and the next are not as immutable as once he believed.

Mashing together the grittiest British police procedural with dark supernatural terror, author Gary McMahon creates a refreshingly new take on horror fiction.

FILE UNDER: Horror [See the Dead / Skin Trade / Beyond Reality / A Sacrifice]

Publishers Weekly

Years ago, a car accident killed Thomas Usher's wife and daughter and left him with an unwanted gift: the ability to see the silent shades of the restless dead. Now a psychic detective, Usher takes a mundane job for night club owner Baz Singh, keeping an eye on Baz's daughter, Kareena, an assignment that ends when Usher finds Kareena's corpse. Usher soon learns that Kareena's death is just the latest in a series and that the murders, the kidnapping of a little girl, and even Usher's own past are all elements in the cheerfully malevolent Mr. Shiloh's vast occult plot. McMahon's prose is serviceable; Usher is a competent-enough example of the paranormal gumshoe, from tragic backstory to gloomy worldview; and there is the necessary unresolved shadowy menace. Unfortunately, the novel never ventures past these basic ingredients. (Jan.)

GARY McMAHON is a British writer whose short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies in the UK and US. He is the multi-award nominated author of the novellas Rough Cut and All Your Gods Are Dead, and the novels Rain Dogs and Hungry Hearts. He has been nominated for seven different British Fantasy Awards as both author and editor, and won four times.