Horrordude asked me to review Headstone City. I had done so before so I am reprinting it with edits.

HEADSTONE CITY By Tom Piccirilli

It so happens that the first chapter of this book was excerpted in November Mourns, and as I was reading it I remembered thinking that this was one heck of a way to start to his next novel! The style was different than November Mourns as the narrative had much more action. From what I was reading, rather than relying on atmosphere to carry the story along, Tom gave the story punch right from the start.

For me, the equal parts of atmosphere and plotting in November Mourns combined to make it my favorite book of last year (and to this day) and I wondered if he would do the same in Headstone City or if he would rely more on action.

Headstone City starts out with a man named Dane who is in prison and going to be released that very day. He has a problem though, there is someone on the outside who wants him killed before he steps out into the free world once again. Dane knows that sometime today there will be an attempt on his life and knowing what’s in store for him he's wary. He goes into a shower to clean up before leaving and sure enough there are two men waiting there who have been blackmailed into sticking a shiv into him.

Dane of course does make it out of prison, dispatching the would be killers in one hell of a fight and then heads home...right back to the job he had before, as a taxi driver.

But Dane's problems weren't over leaving prison, he has other issues. For instance he sees dead people, and they talk to him, quite often it turns out. And when they do converse with him, they can tell him things that can be quite unpleasent.

Before his stay in prison, Dane unknowingly drove a young female friend to a drug house in his cab, where the young girl overdosed and was in serious trouble. Dane comes back around to the drug liar and sees her in distress as she's coming out of the house, so he scoops her up in the cab and rushes her to the hospital, where sadly, she eventually dies.

Dane's got two really big problems now; the young girl was the daughter of a mob boss who wants revenge on Dane for his part in her overdose and death (he's the one who sent the two to kill Dane in the prison shower), and it turns out that while driving this young girl to the hospital Dane runs over a cop. The thing is he continued to drive to the hospital with the cop still hanging on to his hood. That’s the charge that sent him to jail in the first place. So a lot of people just don't like Dane.

In the course of the novel the dead young girl often comes up from hell to chit chat with Dane, heck, she even tries to have sex with him! She wants revenge it seems on the drug dealer who gave her the bad heroin who caused her to overdose. Dane’s father also comes to talk to him. He was a corrupt cop who got killed several years ago. And to add to the crowd of dead people trying to get a word in with him, Dane’s mother also visits him along with a young boy. Both of them had died of cancer. And along the way as the story progresses, several other dead people come a calling.

Aside from being able to talk to dead people, Dane also has the gift of making people’s souls come out of their body while they are sleeping. This comes in very handy when he wants to get information from people who aren't very forthcoming, he just waits until they're asleep and talks to their souls.

Horrordude, this is not a bad book, I did enjoy it, but to say its muddled would be an understatement. Too much goes on with too many people for the reader to really become more than a casual observer. The book is full of mob stories with inept mob wiseguys and Tom takes delight in having Dane constantly note how horrible these mob guys are. The weird thing is, that even though he has the mob botch every attempt to kill Dane, Dane keeps longing for the good old days when mobsters where much more professional and always got the job done. It seemed a bit of a contridiction to me.

In addition to mob guys, there is are whole threads on: making movies, movie stars, an FBI sting (talk about a convuluted plot line... I never understood what the hell was happening), and Italian bakeries. And in addition to all this is his old Grandmother who turns out to be tougher than all those mob guys! She's a real character and fond of saying things like “you gotta finish what you start”.

The ending of the novel seemed to come out of the blue, like it was an afterthought on how to wrap things up. After all the reading I'd done, I scratched my head at this ending.

What saved this book for me and made it enjoyable was Pic's writing . He is one hell of a writer as you know and can just captivate you with his word play and descriptions. Please see the passages below:

<<<<His father, a hard man of imperfect justice. His mother, a mere suggestion that dwelled in the house, unseen but still obvious, often coughing. His Grandmother, a Sicilian witch lady of sorts, a soothsayer who didn’t soothe. It was her way. At nine she’d seen the Virgin Mary in an olive grove outside Messina, in the shadow of Mt. Etna. She told her local priest, who had burned her with sulfur for speaking with the devils tongue. You heard about stuff like that and you understood why she loved chapels but hated churches.

Since then, she’d had dreams that gave her a glimpse through the thinnest part of the veil. They informed her of what was happening, who might be visiting Dane from the other side. She called it his burden, but didn’t treat it as such. It had been passed to him like a rock. >>>>

And:

<<<<Dane looked down to see a girl, maybe twelve years old, touching his wrist. Tufts of coarse gray hair stuck out in odd cusps and notches across her pink scabbed head. Bandages swathed her throat and forehead, and there was hardly anything left of her face.

He couldn’t tell if she’d been in a fire or if this was some kind of cancer, chewing her away an inch at a time while the doctors tore more away with their scalpels and radiation. She looked at him with one perfect eye, beautiful in its depth and full of understanding, perhaps even forgiving. The dark angles of her ruined features drew together to form an inexplicable shadow.

She used what remained of her lips to ask, “Are you real?’

It gave Dane some pause. “I’m not so sure anymore. I have my bad days. How about you?”

Something like a tongue prodded forward. She grunted a sound that could’ve been either yes or no and tried to give him a grin.>>>>>>>

I would recommend reading this book just for the beauty of the writing Horrordude. If you can follow the plot well enough and if you keep clear on all the characters its a very good read. I just think that Piccirilli used too much of both in this novel.

Tt

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"There's no law, no law anymore - I wanna steal from the rich and give to the poor."
~The Ramones~

I don't recall any incest threads in Headstone City.

Tt

_________________
"There's no law, no law anymore - I wanna steal from the rich and give to the poor."
~The Ramones~

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Tom Piccirilli is the author of over 20 novels including SHADOW SEASON, THE COLD SPOT, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN. www.thecoldspot.blogspot.com

Wow, just finished Headstone City and I have to say I enjoyed every sentence. Leave it to the writing magic of Tom Piccirilli to bring a supernatural mob story to flesh and bone.

The whole time I was reading this I felt like the ghost of John Gotti was sitting next to me saying, "That Grandma Lucia sure kicks ass. I could've used her in my crew!"

The main character of Dane is written so bad-ass, that at times, I thought he might show up in front of my house to take me on one of his nightrides, making me tell him what I really thought of the book.

As always, the character's in a Piccirilli masterpiece are all out of their minds in a cool way that makes you keep reading way past your bedtime. The visceral-sharp descriptions of the haunting visits that plague Dane throughout the novel, I found to be creepy enough to think of this novel as not only dark, but part horror also.

The ending, although suggested in parts of dialogue, I didn't really see coming. But, when you finish this, you will realize that Dane was just too cool of a character to have ended the story any other way.

If anyone on here hasn't read this one by, Tom, move it up on your list, because it's one hell of a ride through revenge, loss, torment, and killer storytelling-as always.

My next novel by The Pic Man: The Cold Spot-and from what, Tt, has told me, I better strap myself in.

Wish me luck.

_________________
"There's no law, no law anymore - I wanna steal from the rich and give to the poor."
~The Ramones~

Thanks for the sweet review, H-dude, much appreciated!

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Tom Piccirilli is the author of over 20 novels including SHADOW SEASON, THE COLD SPOT, and A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN. www.thecoldspot.blogspot.com