Jeff Somers, author of popular noir thriller The Electric Church, kicks the door in on the darkly whimsical and macabrely weird with Five Funerals: Choose Your Own Perilous Path―a book that looks at the tongue-in-cheek nihilism of Edward Gorey’s The Gashlycrumb Tinies and asks, “What if these kids had a bit more life in them?” What emerges is a book you never knew you wanted to read but won’t want to put down.
The graduating class of Bishop Carlbus Prep has a secret.
The Outing Party is a tradition at Bishop Carlbus, a semi-illicit party hosted by a senior student after the annual Outing, a weekend field trip taken by the graduating class every year. In 1995, Amy Keaton is determined to host a legendary Outing Party, but everything goes wrong. Her classmates are rude. Someone seems to be sabotaging her plans. And, as the night goes on, resentment and rage start driving everyone to extremes. The party spins out of control: by the next morning, Amy Keaton is dead, and twenty-five kids have a soul-crushing secret.
In 2015, six Bishop Carlbus Prep alumni―Victor, Kate, Leo, Titus, Ida, and Winnie―gather for the funeral of their old high school classmate Zillah. They soon realize that they are now the sole surviving members of the Class of 1995―everyone else who attended Amy Keaton’s Outing Party is dead. And many of those deaths are bizarre and shocking. Sucked dry by leeches. Consumed by mice. Swept out to sea.
The survivors begin piecing together the events of the last two decades, and wonder: Is someone hunting them? Are they next?
And, maybe, do they deserve to be next?
Jeff Somers was first sighted in Jersey City, New Jersey after the destruction of a classified government installation in the early 1970s; the area in question is still too radioactive to go near. When asked about this, he will only say that he regrets nothing. He is the author of Lifers, the Avery Cates series from Orbit Books (avery-cates.com), Chum from Tyrus Books, and The Ustari Cycle from Pocket/Gallery, including We Are Not Good People.
Jeff’s published over thirty short stories as well; his story “Sift, Almost Invisible, Through” appeared in the anthology Crimes by Moonlight, published by Berkley Hardcover and edited by Charlaine Harris, and his story “Ringing the Changes” was selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2006. He survives on the nickels and quarters he regularly finds behind his ears, his guitar playing is a plague upon his household, and his lovely wife The Duchess is convinced he would wither and die if left to his own devices, but this is only half true.
Today, he makes beer money by writing amazing things for various people. Favorite whiskey: Glenmorangie 10 Year. Yes, it is acceptable to pay him in it.
Discover more about Jeff Somers and his work at www.jeffreysomers.com.
