Closure

By: Charles Brass

Narrated by: Ron McKenzie-Lefurgey

Whicker Campbell has a problem. Since the death of his sister, his mother has been lost in her grief. As an enchanti, she cannot just let herself go, though she very much wants to. Unknowingly, she’s feeding off her son’s life force. As a necroti for the state, Whicker needs every ounce of energy he can get just to make it through his day. After a year, the effects of his mother’s feeding are finally hitting home. Whicker knows he has only a week or two left. With the one-year anniversary of his sister’s death fast approaching, he comes up with a desperate plan to save himself and his mother. It involves a dead nine-year-old girl, a Hatcher Key, and the help of his mentor, an older necroti. But from the start, Whicker’s plan begins to unravel....

To her shock, Investigator Suzin Rollings's well of telepati ability has run dry. Facing mandatory retirement one week short of 40 years, Suzin, who works for the state's Department of Overnormal Affairs, finds herself heading into a bleak, uncertain future. Then a strange case falls into her lap: video evidence suggests two intruders have stolen the body of a recently deceased nine-year-old girl from a funeral home on the morning of her funeral. But the sad ceremony went off without a hitch, leaving her and the funeral home director wondering if there’s even been a crime. Determined to go out with an unquestioned success, Suzin begins her investigation. And soon finds herself on the trail of two necrotii who have violated every oath they’ve sworn to uphold.

©2017 Charles LeBrasseur (P)2019 Charles LeBrasseur

Black humour and preteen zombies.

I received the audiobook version of this story from the author in exchange of a honest review.

An interesting story… It has a touch of paranormal because, in this story’s universe, certain abilities of people are exploited. For example: The MC, Whicker, is a necroti, a person who, using his own energy, helps souls to “move on” (after people die, in some cases, their souls linger rather than moving on to the afterlife, so the necroti helps them to walk to the “light” and leave). His mother is an enchati, a person with magical powers who can cast spells (don’t image a Harry Potter thingie with magic wands and flying brooms, it’s much less elaborate, but it’s a kinda magic anyway). And there’s a third character, this police detective, a telepati, who has some sort of (you guessed right!) telepathic abilities and can tell whether witnesses/criminals are lying to her or can pick a lead almost out of nowhere only by using a special “intuition”.

If you are fond of zombies, there are some of them here. If a soul does not “move on”, then there’s a chance the soul may go back into their original body and turn into an undead. Chances are this undead goes mental and ends up eating you or your dog, but not always. Watch out anyway.

Whicker’s mother, the enchanti, is grieving because husband and her daughter (Whicker’s sister) die almost one after the other (different reasons), so she wants to die too. She can’t (because of her magical powers) so her willingness to die is focused on Whicker who is, slowly albeit relentlessly, losing his vital energy so important for his necrotic job. You may understand Whicker wants to bring his mum out this state on the double, so he concocts this spooky plan of using an undead (a friend of his arranges the whole thing), a nine-year-old girl whom he plans to disguise as his dead sister to shock his mother. Pretty creative, isn’t it?

It’s here where the police detective appears because stealing dead bodies and forcing their souls back into them is a crime—no wonder. Things get even worse because the girl’s body starts decomposing—if you like gore, this is the right story, there’s plenty.

I won’t spoil the story for you, but I will certainly recommend it. It’s fast paced. It’s creative in a The Adams Family macabre fashion. It’s spooky, and has a touch of black humour. Talking about the audiobook, I so enjoyed it. It’s well read and well performed. The voice actor is good at recreating the different characters, even the zombie girl.

So, go for it if you like the macabre that is not straight forward horror, splashed with cute nine-year-old decaying zombies who eat dogs… raw.

Kiss,

Gacela

A fresh take on an old story

Everyone wonders what happens after death. Charles Brass takes us on a wild ride in a new dimension of reality to address that question. In this fabulous tale, those who are gifted to touch an alternate dimension are trained and assigned by the government. But they are still just average people, with average problems, only with unique solutions.

Great escape

Good story and performance

The story line was fascinating. It was, however, confusing at spots. The character backgrounds and certain key descriptions were not clear and left me with lots of questions. The performance was good and brought the story to life .