To Bury the Dead [Mass Market Paperback]

Craig Spector (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 5, 2000

To Bury The Dead

Paul Kelly is a good man, a firefighter and paramedic facing death and danger daily, selflessly risking his own safety for the sake of strangers. Paul has seen tragedy a thousand times, but it has never been his own. Until now...

A shocking crime. A loved one, brutally murdered. Paul's life is suddenly invaded by police, reporters, and the harsh glare of spotlights on a family's private grief. The killer shows no sorrow, no remorse--a teen sociopath whose dead eyes stare in sullen silence. Paul does not want blood or vengeance. He wants to know why.

Paul Kelly was a good man. But his obsession is drawing him into the darkest depths of the human soul. Where a terrible truth luks in the shadows of lies. And a price must be paid...

To Bury The Dead

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Paul Kelly is a firefighter and paramedic working the suburbs of New York, often seeing drug addicts, prostitutes and suicide and crime victims. After viewing tragedy after tragedy for years on end, Paul is almost unflappable, except when those hurt are truly innocent, like the baby he rescues from a burning building. However, even Paul is surprised by his own transformation after violence hits him hard and at home. One night, Kyra, his teenage daughter, is attacked and brutally strangled; all of Paul's efforts can't save her, and Kyra dies in his arms on the way to the hospital. After the funeral and a brief time off from work, Paul resumes his shifts, but he is a changed man. When the police identify a suspect in the killingDa teenage psychopathDPaul kidnaps the boy, torturing him to find some reason why he would have killed Kyra. In a stunning climactic scene with a surprise twist, readers realize just how far Paul's obsession drives him. Spector (The Light at the End) is a strong writer who convincingly re-creates the dark, often gruesome world of paramedics and firefighters. Most impressive is his exploration into Paul's character and how ordinary people cope with extraordinary grief and horror. Not for the faint of heart, Spector's latest is for lovers of the best psychological thrillers, along the lines of Ruth Rendell's, and with national radio advertising and in-store displays, booksellers will have little difficulty bringing the book to readers' attention. Agent, Anthony Gardner. (Dec. 5)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A riveting marvel...Spector holds the reader spellbound." -- --Richard Christian Matheson

"Bare-knuckle popular fiction--a book that burns like a five-alarm fire." -- --Peter Atkins

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: HarperTorch (December 5, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380793059
• ISBN-13: 978-0380793051
• Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,087,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi all ~ I am a bestselling novelist, produced screenwriter for feature film and TV, and experienced musician. Sold my first novel, THE LIGHT AT THE END, at age 24, and have been doing it ever since.

Becoming a novelist was a complete accident for me -- I was graduating from the Berklee College of Music in Boston and one day in 1982 while riding the T over the Charles River Bridge to see a Harvard Square feel good film fest of The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver (!!) it suddenly occurred to me: what if there was a vampire in the subways?

That idea became THE LIGHT AT THE END. LIGHT became a bestseller, a savage story about a punk vampire abandoned on the doorstep of Hell (or rather, Manhattan...) It's been reprinted in nine languages, and Josh Whedon loved it so much he basically stole the character Rudy Pasko to create Spyke in Buffy The Vampire Slayer (thanks Josh, feel free to cut me a check anytime!)

Other books followed -- some in collaboration with former partner John Skipp, then solo works -- A QUESTION OF WILL, UNDERGROUND, and my latest novel in progress, TURNAROUND. Other films as well, including A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD, and weird little ones like VOLCANO: FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN (long story, don't ask, ha!)

Since 2010 my backlist has been seeing new 21st century digital life as eBooks from a cool new company, Crossroad Press. Those titles are available here on amazon -- THE LIGHT AT THE END, THE SCREAM, DEAD LINES, ANIMALS, A QUESTION OF WILL, THE BRIDGE, and DEAD LINES: The Writing of The Screenplay. I sincerely hope you will check them out.

As for music -- yes, I still compose and perform. My debut solo original music eCD -- CRAIG SPECTOR: SO LO -- is also available here on amazon. My last movie, ANIMALS (based on my 6th novel and the last Skipp & Spector novel) is out on DVD and here on amazon, too.

Something new is always in the works -- new books, new music, new movies -- so feel free to friend me on FB, follow me on Twitter (though I confess, I'm not much of a Tweeter) and even click over to my website at www.craigspector.com.
And if you do check out my work, please, feel free to get back to me -- I'd love to know what you think!

Best,
Craig Spector

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Raw, unnerving, sucks you in like a vacuum and never lets go, March 9, 2002

By 

Andrew Ceroni (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Bury the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

For parents who love and cherish their children, it is the most horrific, middle-of-the-night, cold sweat of a nightmare imaginable. Craig Spector's tale of freefall helplessness, overwhelming grief, and seething rage is within a razor's edge of being too realistic to bear. The main character, Paul Kelly, is a career EMT-Fire Rescue professional accustomed to creeping through burning buildings to save lives. When incomprehensible tragedy strikes his family, Kelly finds his core self melted down by dual raging infernos of anger and anguish to the most base of primal instincts. When the justice system doesn't work, when what's "legal" isn't "right", then "illegal" no longer seems "wrong". TO BURY THE DEAD is raw, unnerving... and sucks a reader in like a vacuum and never lets go. Twists and turns through the plot's smoke-filled corridors will keep you from seeing what lies just ahead, yet drive you to flipping pages toward it. A breath-stopping, heart-thumping thriller of a novel. Must-read.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Potent thriller with compelling characters, March 21, 2001

By 

"pierrel" (Morristown, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To Bury the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

After reading the reviews of this book which went from loved it to hated it, I decided to give it a try. I have to say, I found it very compelling. The characters were very believeable and the author's ability to pace a story kept me turning the pages, which I always look for in a good thriller. I actually read it in one sitting.

The ending is somewhat oblique, and at first I wasn't sure I liked it, but then I realized that it's the kind of story that doesn't have a neat ending with all the loose ends tied, and perhaps that makes some readers uncomfortable. The story stayed in my mind long after I read it, which is more than I can say for many other books I've read.

I guess it's up to the individual to decide for themselves whether they like a story like this -- it's dark and hard-edged and feels very real, but it lingers in the imagination. It may make you mad. But it will not leave you untouched. Highly recommended.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This thriller is very scary, December 2, 2000

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: To Bury the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

In Glendon, New Jersey, Paul Kelly is a model citizen. He regularly risks his life as a firefighter-rescue worker helping to save total strangers. He has been happily married for almost two decades to schoolteacher Julie. The couple has one daughter, sixteen-year-old Kyra. To Paul, his world is near perfect even with his beloved child going through a rebellious stage.

While working a case involving a decaying corpse at a motel, Paul's partner receives the call that starts the end of Paul's life as he knows it. The victim becomes personal. An unknown assailant has brutally beaten Kyra. Paul arrives at the scene in time to enter the ambulance. In spite of his and the emergency crew on board, Kyra says a last word, "daddy," before dying. Unable to cope with the senseless death of his beloved child, Paul expects the police to catch a brutally vicious-looking monster. However his stereotype fails to prove true as the prime suspect seems more like an innocent looking teen. Paul needs to know why the kid resorted to violence.

TO BURY THE DEAD is every parent's worse nightmare because no one wants to believe that bad things happen to good people. The story line works because readers understand the needs and relationships of the Kelly family. Augmenting the gloom is the specter of the killer who should look like a deadly animal. This work offers no solace or LIGHT AT THE END of the nightmare. Readers, who want gripping, well-written authenticity in their suspense novels, will ghoulishly enjoy Craig Spector's in-close thriller.

Harriet Klausner