Similar to last reviewer I found this repetitive and tiresome. I felt no connection to the main character - or any of the characters - and it was a slog to get to the end. If it wasn't for an unexpected trip this week giving me some reading time I doubt I would have even finished it. ( )

Good premise, awful production. Thomas Usher is not relatable or sympathetic. Half-baked ideas thrown in randomly (tattoos?), the ending is atrocious, the villains boil down to caricatures. ( )

It's another super-glum novel from Mr. McMahon. Fifteen years ago, Thomas Usher lost his wife and daughter in a car crash for which he feels partially responsible. Ever since then, he has been able to see ghosts, so he occasionally works as a kind of exorcist who helps the spirits move on to wherever they are supposed to go. At the beginning of this story, he's operating as a detective when the girl he's tailing is murdered.

This book started out fair, but irked me more and more as I progressed. Let's start with Usher. He has two defining characteristics: he's depressed and guilt-ridden. Yeah, he's a fun character. He is so guilt-ridden that he has the names of people he's "failed" tattooed on his back. I could see if he kept a notebook, or even had a list framed on his wall, but tattooing them on his body? Laying it on a bit thick.

The book spends less time on the murder mystery than it does telling us how miserable Usher is.

The finale is one of those where the author can't figure out how to resolve the story so he attempts to overwhelm the reader with weirdness, hoping he or she won't notice that it doesn't make any sense. And it doesn't resolve anything, because at the end Usher looks more guilty than he did before, but McMahon hand-waves it away by having him basically say "this is sure gonna be tough to explain to the chief!" Indeed. The end.

At the end of the book is a short that expands on an event referenced in the main story. It's not too bad, and at fifteen pages there isn't as much time for Usher to talk about how sad he is, but I'm not sure it would stand alone as a story.

If you are interested in this sub-genre, read Mike Carey instead. He's a far better writer and has a sense of humor. ( )

Thomas Usher sees dead people – the bigger problem is that worse things can see him...

Thomas Usher is a tortured soul, weighed down with guilt after the death of his wife and child following a car accident which left them dead and him with the ability to see dead people.

I wanted to read his book because I was curious to find out how Thomas Usher compared to John Connolly’s Charlie Parker with similar circumstances.

There are strong similarities in the characters and their situations but that is where it ends. The geographical settings sum up the differences between the styles perfectly: Maine and Leeds.

Maine, steeped in folklore, with its everlasting winter, vast, mysterious woods, wild rugged coastline has a haunted, cruel poetic beauty. While Leeds… bleak, brutal, gritty and visceral. It’s very grim oop North

The bleakness is relentless – the mantra is “Memento Mori” remember you will die but the writing is fabulous and almost slips into an angst-ridden prose at times. Thomas Usher is a compelling character so full of guilt he can hardly function, a truly broken man. Reminds me a little of early Clive Barker/Ramsey Campbell.
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