Dead of Light
"That's a favourite" says Chaz. "And you know what I always say about it? It ain't a horror novel, it's a mafia novel with added magic. And a coming-of-age novel, a rites-of-passage novel - and secretly a whodunnit, but keep that under your hat..."
When Benedict left home, it was maybe the first time he'd stood up to his family. It was also meant to be the last. No contact, he said, I'm disinvesting.
In all honesty, they weren't sorry to see him go. Ben had never had their talent, never had the family spark. When you run a city - especially they way the Macallans ran theirs - the last thing you need is a reluctant passenger.
But suddenly Ben's learning a lot, far more than his university course could ever teach him. And as his family starts to die one by one - vicious, gruesome, horrible deaths - the chief lesson is that you can't turn your back on blood. There's someone in the city with as much talent as the Macallans, and Ben's connected after all. It's there in his body, it's in his veins; and be it thick or thin, be it still pumping or leaking out, blood is very much darker than water...
"This is my first book by Chaz Brenchley, but it won't be my last. The man has enormous depth as a writer, giving us a searing portrait of a young man who has never lived among normal people, and has no idea how relationships are carried out."
"Contemporary crime fiction is a broad church. There isn't a subject or a style that's excluded. Often, the books that push back the boundaries are among the best, like Patricia Cornwell, Ruth Rendell or Peter Hoeg. With his latest book, Chaz Brenchley demonstrates there is still new ground to be broken, and cultivated well.
"The Macallan family are a close-knit Mafia who run their city with ruthless efficiency. That, and magic. For the Macallan men are no ordinary team of villains. The unique talent that passes from one generation to another means their grip on their territory seldom slackens. That is, until someone shows up with more talent than all of them put together and Macallans start dying in ways more horrible than they could ever have imagined. It's a crisis that forces the family reject, Benedict, back into their spiky bosom. Benedict, the self-imposed outcast, the talentless one, holds the key to the serial murders that are decimating his family. But is it a key he understands? And can he bring himself to use it?
"Brenchley is a writer who worms his way into the heads and hearts of his characters and tells their terrible, tragic truths. Dead of Light grips like superglue. Powerful, poetic and passionate, it reveals an assured and accomplished story-teller at the peak of his powers. Like the whisky the family shares its name with, it's magic!"
Val McDermid, Tangled Web:
Dead of Light is available as an e-book, from Book View Café. Go to Book View Café to start reading, or to buy a copy in your preferred format, for only $4.99.
Available for Kindle at Amazon UK or Amazon.com.
Light Errant, the sequel to Dead of Light - and Desdæmona, what Ben Macallan did next!