Die Dreaming

Since the publication of his much-praised debut, Deadstick, Terence Faherty has established himself as an uncommonly original and compelling writer. In Die Dreaming, he continues to redefine the mystery, as seen through the eyes of his ever-curious hero, Owen Keane - the "metaphysical detective" whose constant wonderings and wanderings bring him up against some of life's larger questions.
At his ten-year high school reunion, Owen learns that the group of friends he'd most admired all share a dark secret. But not until the next reunion, ten years later, does he uncover the sad and ugly truth about his friends, who succumbed to the temptations and expectations of their Vietnam-era age, and have been paying the price ever since.
Told with the deadpan humor, keen insight, and subtle mystery that have become Terence Faherty's trademarks, Die Dreaming is a novel of rare accomplishment.

Owen Keane was studying in his preparation for the priesthood when he roamed the back roads of the midwest in Faherty's excellent 1993 The Lost Keats . Met again here, in 1978, he's a seminary drop-out and self-styled sleuth working in a Boston liquor store. At the 10th reunion of his class at Our Lady of Sorrows High School in New Jersey, Owen stumbles across--and solves--a mystery dating from senior year that left one classmate struggling hard with nightmares of drug use and duty in Vietnam. A leap ahead to 1988 finds Owen tending bar in Atlantic City and still addicted to finding answers, this time to questions about the recent death of that same classmate. Investigating in his laid back and largely cerebral manner, Owen uncovers further secrets shared by his old classmates. As one woman remarks, Owen's gift is that much that appears to escape him actually doesn't. He's a rare bird in crime fiction and while this tale sprawls and rambles in parts, its rewards are rich and surprising.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A unique story idea is the most notable feature of Faherty's latest mystery. Owen Keane, a student at Our Lady of Sorrows High School in the turbulent 1960s, is now a liquor-store employee with a fascination for mysteries. When he's invited to his 10-year high-school reunion, he decides to impress his former classmatesespecially the most popular clique, known as the Sorrowersby claiming to run his own detective agency. But his ruse backfires when one of the women at the reunion asks him to take on a bona fide blackmail case, and Owen finds himself involved in a convoluted, abstruse puzzle with roots deep in the past. The truth eludes him until 10 years later, when Owen returns to his twentieth reunion and discovers the shocking secret kept hidden by the Sorrowers for two decades. Unfortunately, while Faherty's plot is inventive and original, his lackluster dialogue and one-dimensional characters keep the novel from being much more than mildly entertaining. Still, it's recommendable for large mystery collections. Emily Melton