Headstone City

On this year's Stoker Award ballot for Superior Achievement in a novel, Headstone City is absolutely one of the best books I read in 2006. Neo-noir with a hip gothic feel, the characters are hardened gangsters, criminals and killers, but you know, the good kind. The kind you root for even when you know the kind of redemption they're looking for just isn't really there to be found. Quick and hard-hitting this is action you can stop and think about, violence with real feeling. A great, great achievement worthy of recognition.

It's easy to admire Tom Piccirilli's versatility. Even though his novels often share certain themes, there is not one very much like another. Even more amazing is how he begins Headstone City in much the same way as his previous novel, November Mourns -- with a man returning home after some time spent in jail to find a task set before him -- yet decorates this simple plot device with a completely different motivation, setting, and cast of characters. When his friend Vinny Monticelli's sister, Angelica, had a bad reaction to some recreational drugs, Johnny "Dane" Danetello attempted to drive her to the hospital in his cab, hitting a police officer on the way. Angelica died despite his efforts, and the killing of the police officer, especially considering Dane's already lengthy record, got him sent up for five years, and Vinny subsequently put a contract on his now ex-best friend. Now Dane is back in town, talking to ghosts and trying settle an old score. Author Tom Piccirilli's literary sense in Headstone City is phenomenal. Within the confines of the noir genre, he references Shakespeare, gangsters, and Old Hollywood, with room enough left for a subplot involving ghosts, dreams, and alternate realities (and don't worry -- he didn't leave out the "ill children" of his previous two novels, the aforementioned November Mourns and its predecessor, A Choir of Ill Children). And in the midst of all the darkness, there is still room for nostalgia (I got nostalgic myself upon reading the passage about "my mother's old forty-fives. With the little plastic thing in the middle so they'd fit on the record player"). Headstone City is by far the most purely enjoyable of the Piccirilli novels I've read. This could be his ticket to mainstream success, if given the proper promotion. It would most certainly make a terrific movie; the characters, setting, and plot cry out for a cinematic treatment. But the most impressive part is how it can be enjoyed on multiple layers: You can be completely entertained by the surface mafiosi-revenge-noir tale, or look deeper and find even more satisfaction by viewing "Dane" as a Hamlet-type (revenging his father's death while besieged by spirits). Some readers have complained that Dane is a "passive protagonist" and I happen to disagree, believing that he is simply waiting for the right moment to act (much like Hamlet, who doesn't kill Claudius when he has the chance because Claudius is praying and would go to heaven -- Hamlet wants him not only dead, but damned, too -- so he waits, and that leads to his downfall). But, in any case, even when Dane isn't seemingly doing anything toward his end, so much is happening to him that it keeps the story moving smoothly. The supporting characters like Glory Bishop and Grandma Lucia provided at least half of my enjoyment of the book. Headstone City soars either way. It is truly a textbook example of how to combine an age-old plot with a well-worn genre and still manage to produce a

Tom Piccirilli is one of my favorite dark fantasy crafstmen, who always uses a great deal of black humor to heighen his impresive atmosphere. I'm a major fan of his recent novels A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN and NOVEMBER MOURNS, and HEADSTONE CITY is another excellent piece of horror-crime thriller fiction. Like Gary Braunbeck he is a first-rate explorer of the traumas and terrors of personal history. This is emotionally charged, extremely powerful work that crosses the boundaries of genre and really shows something about the truth of the human condition. He is also the ONLY author whose work I can reread almost immediately after finishing, because there are so many intricate layers of story and character that can be found. Laugh-out-loud funny (wait until you meet Grandma and her shotgun), chilling, and illuminating, HEADSTONE CITY might be Piccirilli's best yet.

Few authors are as capable of writing H/DF/M with such a deeply human, literary flavor. His work is always highly atmospheric, with a pervasive sense of melancholy but infused with wonderful humor and wit. You never know from one chapter to the next whether you'll be shocked, chilled, disturbed, or swept up in action. Rarely have I read a book that so often could make me laugh aloud on one page and chill my blood the next. Taking a break from his fierce southern gothic settings (NOVEMBER MOURNS, A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN) HEADSTONE CITY is a Brooklyn-based noir novel with elements of dark fantasy, the supernatural, mob story, and treatise on the search for identity. Ex-con and cab driver Johnny "Dane" Danetello returns to his neighborhood, called "Headstone City" thanks to the nearby cemetery. Plagued with an overwhelming apathy and seemingly always in the wrong place at the wrong time, Dane tries to work up the energy to figure out why he's being pursued by the FBI, why a beautiful actress seems to be so interested in him, and what to do now that his former best friend Vinny Monticelli has placed a contract on his head. Along the way Dane--who's had the ability to see ghosts and take "night rides" in his cab with the souls of the living--tries to make peace with his guilt over the death of Vinny's younger sister, who died in Dane's cab of a drug overdose. Family and personal history always play a major part in Piccirilli's fiction. Here we see how Dane's life has been shaped by the murder of his police officer father, the cruel death by cancer of his mother, his unrequited love of the beautiful Angelina Monticelli, his years stealing cars with Vinny, and the wisdom he gleans from the dead. In my opinion, Piccirilli's novels are hamstrung by genre labels. He's so much better than that, giving us readable, enjoyable, smart, fun, provocative, literate fiction that carries us along through his tremendous imagination and narrative skills. Highly recommended.

Piccirilli's latest novel is a terrific fusion of crime thriller and dark fantasy tale, as a mobster with psychic powers goes after his childhood friend, cab driver Johnny 'Dane' Danetello. This book has it all: action, humor, chills, horror, searing dialogue, and a dark but fun atmosphere that will keep you turning pages. Yet another winner from Piccirilli, who's probably my favorite fantasist currently working in the field. You can never be sure what kind of a story he'll turn out next, but you know it'll be a daring grabber.