Synopsis
The Uncanny is the story of Richard Storm, a producer of horror movies. He comes to England searching for the real counterpart of the ghosts that have made him rich. At a party he reads aloud the classic British ghost story which inspired his Hollywood career, and suddenly, uncannily, starts a chain of actions that literally brings to life his first horror movie.
Harper Albright is a hunter, a rider of the tide of the Uncanny, whose credo is simply, "Believe nothing." Once young and beautiful, she has devoted her life to seeking out and destroying the evil Iago, her former lover, now the hunter of their son. Harper must destroy Iago before he can find all the clues to recreate the Philosopher's Stone, which will give him immortality at the cost of his son's life.
With Richard's reading at the party, Iago's trail suddenly grows hot. A trail of ghost stories stretching from Storm's films back to the Middle Ages provide the clues which will lead to Iago.
Publishers Weekly
Thriller fans who expect the unexpected from Klavan True Crime won't find that anticipation dashed with his new novel, a series of clever riffs on the classic ghost story. The main plot follows the adventures of Richard Storm, 40, a producer of Hollywood horror films who's come to England to work on Bizarre! magazine, find a real-life ghost story and, perhaps, win some emotional relief from the cancer rotting his brain. At a party, Richard reads aloud "Black Annie," the ghost story that inspired his career (which story Klavan presents in all its neo-gothic glory, as one of several ghost tales embedded in the narrative). One partygoer, beautiful Sophia Endering, drops her glass in shock while listening. She, Richard learns, has lived some of the events of "Black Annie," which centers around the sacrifice of a youngstera sacrifice explained through an ancient tale recorded by the great dark fantasist M.R. James (whose widow makes a cameo here). The sacrifice is also depicted in an ancient, disassembled triptych now sought by a diabolical presence known as St. Iago, because the triptych, when whole, reveals the secret to immortalityand its terrible price. Klavan pulls out all the stops, repeatedly blindsiding the reader with shifts in plot, tone and point of view, peopling his tale with wild eccentrics and wilder settings, winking at the genre but honoring it too, right through the over-the-top climax set in a ruined abbey on a dark and stormy night. Not all of the Sturm und Drang works (Klavan's principals, especially, are more caricature than character), but suspense is high, the fun factor higher, and Klavan, cackling all the while, demonstrates again that his ability to make a genre his own is simply... uncanny. Foreign rights sold in the U.K., Germany and Italy. (Feb.)