The Loveliest Dead

Horror master Garton delivers his usual ironic and macabre touches as the dead, who are, in fact, pretty ugly, make life a hell for the living. Following a sequence of increasingly dire personal tragedies, culminating in the unexplained death of their four-year-old son, Josh, Jenna and David Kella plan to make a new start of their lives on the old family homestead they've inherited just outside Eureka, Calif., with their surviving son, Miles. What they discover, though, is a nightmare. Ghostly children play on the backyard swings and vanish abruptly. In a cruel and maddening irony, one of the child ghosts resembles Josh. The frights and horrors pile up as psychics, ouija boards and poltergeists join the mix.

From Publishers Weekly

In this ironically titled shocker from horror maestro Garton (Live Girls), the dead, who are pretty ugly, make life a hell for the living. Jenna and David Kellar, after a series of personal tragedies, the worst of which is the inexplicable death of their four-year-old son, Josh, hope to make a new start at the old family homestead they've inherited just outside Eureka, Calif., with their surviving son, Miles. Instead, they discover a nightmare. Ghostly children cavort mysteriously on the backyard swings and vanish at will. Tantalizingly, cruelly, one resembles Josh. After a slow start, the action pulls the reader into a frightening world of psychics, ouija boards and poltergeists. The scenario will remind many of Stephen King's The Shining, even though this workmanlike effort isn't in the same league as that classic. (Apr.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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