A Room for the Dead - Hardcover

Hynd, Noel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0821745832 ISBN 13: 9780821745830

Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp, 1994

Synopsis

Veteran state cop Detective Sergeant Frank O'Hara pursues a crazed serial killer whose crimes bear the grisly signature of Gary Ledbetter, a vicious murderer arrested by O'Hara and executed years earlier. By the author of Ghosts. 40,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

The chills come fast and hard in Hynd's latest, a riveting blend of ghost story and police procedural. New Hampshire state cop Frank O'Hara, approaching 50 and close to retirement, is given a case--a young woman is beheaded, her right hand cut off--that duplicates the M.O. of serial killer Gary Ledbetter. But Gary, a "low-rent Lothario" nabbed by O'Hara, was executed months ago in Florida, after political machinations moved the killer to a state with capital punishment. Since then, O'Hara's life has turned to ashes. He's taken seriously to booze, his wife has left him, his partner has committed suicide--and now, deep into another hated winter, something seems to be haunting his house: floors creak, doors slam, an empty rocking chair rocks. A tangle of right-wing state politics, skinhead thieves, a mysterious young woman and, increasingly, dialogues between O'Hara and what seems to be Gary's ghost lead the cop through past police corruption and malfeasance to a shattering conclusion. Throughout, the atmospherics are excellent and the local color first-rate: "There's ten months of winter and two months of bad skiiing. The state animal is the skunk, the state bird is the black fly, the state citizen is the deadbeat, and the state sport is petty larceny." After several spy thrillers, Hynd switched to the occult with his previous novel, Ghosts . This spooky follow-up confirms that he's made the right choice.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Fans of Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz, and the like will give Hynd a thumbs up for his latest shivery ghost story. Detective Frank O'Hara, a New Hampshire cop anticipating early retirement, has to rethink his plans when a case he closed six months earlier comes back to haunt him--literally. Gary Ledbetter was executed for torturing, killing, and dismembering at least five young women up and down the eastern seabord. But now another murder has taken place, and this one has all the grisly trademarks of Gary's particularly gruesome style. Since it was O'Hara's dogged investigation that sent Gary to the electric chair, the detective finds himself assigned to reinvestigate one of the most puzzling and terrifying cases of his career. While Hynd doesn't quite invoke the same level of nightmarish terror as some of his fellow horror writers, he's good at macabre, mind-bending plots with plenty of grotesque details, and he effectively blends the horror and mystery genres. Emily Melton

About this edition

• Publisher: Kensington Pub Corp
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0821745832
• ISBN 13: 9780821745830
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 353