Horror/Thriller That Puts You in the "Twilight Zone"~"Dead Bad Things" by Gary McMahon

Published by:  Angry Robot/Osprey

Author's website:  http://www.garymcmahon.com/ 

Release Date Scheduled:  September 27, 2011
Purchase:  Amazon - $7.79 for Kindle

Synopsis :

Thomas Usher, a reluctant psychic, has gone off the radar in London, hiding from the fall-out of a previous case involving a missing young girl and several hanged strippers. Before long, and as if to confirm that he can never truly hide from the dead, Usher starts receiving messages - a clockwork voice on the phone, a Rwandan psychic who hears voices, hellish visions in a derelict riverside warehouse. Usher slowly realises that the answers to these riddles, and perhaps to the questions he has never dared ask about his personal history, will only be revealed if he returns home to Leeds...

Sarah Doherty is a police constable in Leeds. She and her partner - who is also her lover - are drawn into a nightmare when they find the mutilated body of a young boy. Is there some kind of serial killer operating on their patch, or do these grim discoveries point to something even worse - something from Sarah's own past, and involving her emotionally damaged family?

Trevor Dove is a disgraced showman, a flamboyant theatrical medium once exposed as a fraud by Thomas Usher. But the truth is, Dove did once possess a genuine ability to talk with the dead, and when he meets the Pilgrim - a shadowy figure from Thomas Usher's tragic past - he begins to rediscover his gift and unearth secrets that will place his very soul in peril. Driven by a thirst for revenge, he is fated to bring together Usher, Doherty and the Pilgrim in a confrontation that will undermine the fabric of reality.

The Dame Reviews:

Horror fans listen up!  This book is a smash hit.  I'm not ordinarily a reader of such books; and, actually I didn't know what I was getting into when I decided to read "Dead Bad Things."  However, this book captured me from the first page, and off I went on a thrilling ride of horror and suspense unlike any I'd been on for quite some time!  This book reminded me of early Stephen King and Dean Koontz so much that I found myself grinning at the oddest times with nostalgia.  It took me by surprise...difficult to do considering the amount of books I read!

Grim and gripping from the first moments we learn that a man is lamenting over the shallow grave of a tiny boy whom he's killed, and that he's receiving a baby girl from a darkly disguised "angel;" this book never stops driving us to its final conclusion.  Gary McMahon is a horror fiction writer best known in the UK where several of his books have been previously published.  I'm glad we finally are being acquainted with his books here.  I look forward to reading more.

I found McMahon's writing style captivating and descriptive to a point of sharpness.  He made even his supernatural characters believable and horrendous.  They were well imagined and fearful...not too "out of this world," but just to the edge of it and possible enough to be plausible.  This made the story scary and charged with suspense. 

Sarah was an undoubted favorite character for me.  I always love a feisty female who can beat the worst guy at his own game.  She is a fast thinking and tough reacting police detective who walks through her fears as valiantly as any superhero we can remember.  I'd go anywhere scary with Sarah in the lead!  I'd love to hear more of her in the future.

Thomas Usher, the dead-listening/seeing "angel-like" man, who plays a huge part in this novel, is mystery-clouded and we can enjoy uncovering who he actually is and why he's come into the arena of Sarah's life.  I especially loved reading about his search in the clairvoyant area.  So much fun!

Once we meet the dark angels and torturers, it's like reading the best and worst of horror stories.  Greatly interesting, enjoyable and something that makes you want to put your hands over your eyes at the same time.  As a reader of much softer literature, I was reading with "bug eyes," believe me!  This is an adult, sophisticated horror story!

I recommend this book to those who enjoy reading horror/suspense books.  It's not, after all, a Stephen King but it is a good book for a stormy night or two. 

I really enjoyed the book for a change in pace; after all, who hasn't seen a ghost or two--I have; haven't you?  

Coming out in September, it's one to keep an eye out for...
Second in a series about Thomas Usher.

4 stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame