A Room for the Dead [Mass Market Paperback]

Noel Hynd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1995

Veteran state police Detective Sergeant Frank O'Hara pursues a crazed serial killer whose crimes bear the grisly signature of Gary Ledbetter, a vicious murderer arrested by O'Hara and executed years earlier. Reprint. PW.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The chills come fast and hard in Hynd's latest, a riveting blend of ghost story and police procedural. New Hampshire state cop Frank O'Hara, approaching 50 and close to retirement, is given a case--a young woman is beheaded, her right hand cut off--that duplicates the M.O. of serial killer Gary Ledbetter. But Gary, a "low-rent Lothario" nabbed by O'Hara, was executed months ago in Florida, after political machinations moved the killer to a state with capital punishment. Since then, O'Hara's life has turned to ashes. He's taken seriously to booze, his wife has left him, his partner has committed suicide--and now, deep into another hated winter, something seems to be haunting his house: floors creak, doors slam, an empty rocking chair rocks. A tangle of right-wing state politics, skinhead thieves, a mysterious young woman and, increasingly, dialogues between O'Hara and what seems to be Gary's ghost lead the cop through past police corruption and malfeasance to a shattering conclusion. Throughout, the atmospherics are excellent and the local color first-rate: "There's ten months of winter and two months of bad skiiing. The state animal is the skunk, the state bird is the black fly, the state citizen is the deadbeat, and the state sport is petty larceny." After several spy thrillers, Hynd switched to the occult with his previous novel, Ghosts . This spooky follow-up confirms that he's made the right choice.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Fans of Stephen King, John Saul, Dean Koontz, and the like will give Hynd a thumbs up for his latest shivery ghost story. Detective Frank O'Hara, a New Hampshire cop anticipating early retirement, has to rethink his plans when a case he closed six months earlier comes back to haunt him--literally. Gary Ledbetter was executed for torturing, killing, and dismembering at least five young women up and down the eastern seabord. But now another murder has taken place, and this one has all the grisly trademarks of Gary's particularly gruesome style. Since it was O'Hara's dogged investigation that sent Gary to the electric chair, the detective finds himself assigned to reinvestigate one of the most puzzling and terrifying cases of his career. While Hynd doesn't quite invoke the same level of nightmarish terror as some of his fellow horror writers, he's good at macabre, mind-bending plots with plenty of grotesque details, and he effectively blends the horror and mystery genres. Emily Melton --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 412 pages
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786000899
• ISBN-13: 978-0786000890
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #589,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Noel Hynd is an American author who has more than four million books in print. Most of his books have been in the action-espionage-suspense genre (Conspiracy in Kiev, Midnight in Madrid, Countdown in Cairo, The Enemy Within) but others (Ghosts, The Prodigy, A Room For The Dead and Cemetery of Angels) were highly acclaimed ghost stories. He currently has a multi-book publishing contract with Zondervan/HarperCollins.
He is also a former contributor to Sports Illustrated and several other national magazines. His 1988 non-fiction book, The Giants of The Polo Grounds, was an Editor's Choice of The New York TIMES Review of Books in 1988. He has also written several produced screenplays.
Mr. Hynd was born in New York City, is a graduate of the University of Pennsylavnia, and lives in southern California with his wife Patricia.
The Kindle editions of Midnight in Madrid and Conspiracy in Kiev were simultaneously numbers 1 and 2 among all books on Amazon's Kindle Best Seller lists in December 2009.
Several dozen foreign editions of his books have been published over the years. Readers are welcomed to reach Mr. Hynd at [e-mail].

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely, March 16, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Lincoln, NE) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Room for the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the best book that I have ever read. I kept putting off buying the book because it just didn't look interesting. Then one day, when a long bus ride was ahead of me, I bought the book because there didn't seem to be anything better. I could not put the book down and the ending actually made me feel like crying.... not because it was a bad ending but because the main character seemed so real to me that I actually felt his emotions. I recommend "A Room for the Dead" to anyone who mentions that they are a "reader". I have read it five times now.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Room for the Dead, January 28, 2000

By 

Robin (The U.S) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Room for the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

I love this book. I started reading it and I couldn't put it down. It is wonderfully written. I don't read as much I used to unless I find a great book like this one. I stumbled over it at my aunts house. i saw the cover and read the back and I was hooked on it. My mom wants to read it and she is a usual Stephen King fan! I recommend it to people who like to read a good book!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprised to like it so much, March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Room for the Dead (Mass Market Paperback)

I have read most of Noel Hynd's thrillers, and each one seems to get better and better. This happend to be the first one I had read, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I liked it. This isn't the type of book I normally go for, but Hynd does an excellent job reeling the reader in until I just couldn't put it down. The intriguing storyline, with a touch of supernatural mystery, makes for quite a chilling read.