Goodlow's Ghosts [Mass Market Paperback]

T. M. Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 15, 1995

Exploring the full potential of his psychic talents when a gateway opens between Earth and a menacing world, Ryerson Biergarten seeks to keep humans and ghosts in their proper dimensions while searching for a particular man's killer. Reprint.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Short on plot but unusual in substance, this horror tale teams a psychic and the ghost of a murdered PI. Boston detective Sam Goodlow has met his demise at the hand of a hit-and-run driver, but refuses to believe he's really dead; his confused spirit wafts to the home of psychic Ryerson Biergarten. Although taken aback by Goodlow's spooky, transparent appearance, Biergarten feels sympathetic toward the oafish yet affable PI and decides to investigate. He finds "gateways" into another dimension through which physical bodies can pass, apparently accounting for at least a few of the faces pictured on milk cartons. Wright ( Little Boy Lost ) theorizes at length about what it's like to see, or be, a ghost, but there's not much return on reader investment here. Extraneous vignettes about men seduced by not-of-this-world women only string the audience along, and appearances by near-human apparitions, some of whom identify themselves as Goodlow, are simply never explained. Wright's provocative ideas, which could serve as raw material for several books, are never brought to fruition.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books (January 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812513908
• ISBN-13: 978-0812513905
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,771,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quick-moving and absorbing., March 17, 2006

By 

David "Laymon Fan" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Goodlow's Ghosts (Hardcover)

I've read six of T.M. Wright's novels so far. My favorites are "Sleepeasy" and "Goodlow's Ghosts."

Wright is probably best-known for his early novels "Strange Seed" and "A Manhattan Ghost Story," but I recommend that newcomers try one of his Ryerson Biergarten novels first.

Biergarton is a psychic detective who appears in at least four novels: The Changing, The Devouring, Goodlow's Ghosts, and The Ascending.

( "The Changing" and "The Devouring" were both written under the pen name F.W. Armstrong. )

"Goodlow's Ghosts" has two main plot threads.

(1) Former PI Sam Goodlow has been killed in a hit-and-run. Biergarten tries to help his ghost.

(2) Jack Lutz's wife Stevie walks into an abandoned building and doesn't come out. She has literally disappeared. Mr. Lutz asks Biergarten to find his wife.

(I'm deliberately being vague to avoid spoilers.)

This isn't a perfect book. (I gave it five stars only because Amazon doesn't allow 4.5 stars.) However, its flaws are minor, and the book is very entertaining.

The editorial review from Publishers Weekly that Amazon reprints on this page contains some inaccuracies.

From the Publishers Weekly review provided by Amazon:

"Extraneous vignettes about men seduced by not-of-this-world women only string the audience along, and appearances by near-human apparitions, some of whom identify themselves as Goodlow, are simply never explained."

I'm a little annoyed because the reviewer didn't understand what was going on.

The vignettes aren't "extraneous." They're related to one of the two main plot threads.

And, as far as I know, the apparitions who identify themselves as Goodlow are really Goodlow. The book explains that Goodlow loses his memory sometimes.

( It's annoying when a reviewer doesn't bother to read a book closely enough to understand the plot. )