To Bury the Dead

"To Bury the Dead" is the first fiction book I've read in 32 years. Following the murder of my mother in 1974, I found myself able to read only nonfiction because it was too difficult to conceive of letting go and imagining alongside reading a novel. My interest in writing about homicide led me to discover Craig Spector and several of his books, this being my first read. I was fascinated as I watched myself being drawn into both the characters and the story. Given my own experience with murder, as well as the fact that I worked in a hospital for many years, the story was real for me. Craig Spector's writing style offers more than the superficial interest and intrigue involved in a story like this. He creates an environment in which I could hear all the noise of the fire and the chaos in the background as the main character moved through the instant emergency of trying to save lives. There was absolutely constant and intelligible movement that not only kept me interested the entire time, but also kept me seated for 6 hours as I pursued the story because I couldn't put it down until I knew how the main character resolved his personal struggle with his daughter's killer. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a great read, in understanding how survivors deal with their own lives following the homicide of a loved one, and the aspect of its affect upon the community and the workplace as well. A thoroughly interesting book.

For parents who love and cherish their children, it is the most horrific, middle-of-the-night, cold sweat of a nightmare imaginable. Craig Spector's tale of freefall helplessness, overwhelming grief, and seething rage is within a razor's edge of being too realistic to bear. The main character, Paul Kelly, is a career EMT-Fire Rescue professional accustomed to creeping through burning buildings to save lives. When incomprehensible tragedy strikes his family, Kelly finds his core self melted down by dual raging infernos of anger and anguish to the most base of primal instincts. When the justice system doesn't work, when what's "legal" isn't "right", then "illegal" no longer seems "wrong". TO BURY THE DEAD is raw, unnerving... and sucks a reader in like a vacuum and never lets go. Twists and turns through the plot's smoke-filled corridors will keep you from seeing what lies just ahead, yet drive you to flipping pages toward it. A breath-stopping, heart-thumping thriller of a novel. Must-read.

This thriller is truly worthy of the jump starts and hair pin turns that Spector is known for in his previous works. Though more psychological than his usual direct slasher style, he never-the-less probes the depths of violence and the borders of sanity in his new novel, 'To Bury the Dead'. This was a one night read for me that I coudn't put down til the end. It's not a novel that will gross you out- instead this one will make you nervous, wondering what YOU would do if it were YOUR child instead...A must read if you love Skipp and Spector- A must read if you don't.

When an average guy suffers an extreme loss, there's no telling what dark depths he's capable of reaching. Spector does a great job in documenting Paul Kelly's emotional destruction and twists to his perception of self and family. The symbology and chaos of Paul's worklife compared to how he perceives his homelife works on so many levels. The fragility of an individual's world is rendered here in such realistic detail that the relatively benign horrors (compared to the author's previous works) become more terrifying than what is delivered when buckets of gore or supernatural horror are utilized. Highly recommended.

In Glendon, New Jersey, Paul Kelly is a model citizen. He regularly risks his life as a firefighter-rescue worker helping to save total strangers. He has been happily married for almost two decades to schoolteacher Julie. The couple has one daughter, sixteen-year-old Kyra. To Paul, his world is near perfect even with his beloved child going through a rebellious stage.While working a case involving a decaying corpse at a motel, Paul's partner receives the call that starts the end of Paul's life as he knows it. The victim becomes personal. An unknown assailant has brutally beaten Kyra. Paul arrives at the scene in time to enter the ambulance. In spite of his and the emergency crew on board, Kyra says a last word, "daddy," before dying. Unable to cope with the senseless death of his beloved child, Paul expects the police to catch a brutally vicious-looking monster. However his stereotype fails to prove true as the prime suspect seems more like an innocent looking teen. Paul needs to know why the kid resorted to violence.TO BURY THE DEAD is every parent's worse nightmare because no one wants to believe that bad things happen to good people. The story line works because readers understand the needs and relationships of the Kelly family. Augmenting the gloom is the specter of the killer who should look like a deadly animal. This work offers no solace or LIGHT AT THE END of the nightmare. Readers, who want gripping, well-written authenticity in their suspense novels, will ghoulishly enjoy Craig Spector's in-close thriller.Harriet Klausner