Tom Piccirilli Headstone City

Headstone City

Tom Piccirilli

Bantam, March 2006, $5.99 352 pp.

ISBN 0553587218

On his last day in the joint while in the showers, some cons on orders by the Monticelli family try to kill Dane; they are weaklings and he is able to use moves he learned in the army to disarm them. During his time in prison, he is visited by the ghost of Annie Monticelli who he drove to Bedford-Stuyvesant, and waited in the car while she went into a drug dealer's house where she took a lethal dose of a drug cocktail. The Monticelli family blames him, even though he ran over a traffic cop in order to get her to a hospital.

Dane did twenty months for vehicular assault, and now that he has served his time, he is free to go. He should go anywhere except to the old neighborhood, but there are old scores to settle, especially with Vincent Monticelli, who used to be his best friend and now has a contract out on his head. Although there isn't a chance for them to be together, Dane loves Maria Monticelli. In the course of the mob war, Vince has a plan that will give them what them both want.

Vince and Dane once cheated death when they went through a windshield that left them with psychic powers. Besides talking to the dead, Dane can call the souls out of those alive to speak to him when they are sleeping so that he can get information from them. Vince is clairvoyant and can see three different possible futures in the time track. It is up to the audience to decide whether the gifts are real or the imaginings of these dangerous men. Tom Piccirilli writes horror of the human and supernatural kind, and thus contains graphic violence. With HEADSTONE CITY, Mr. Piccirilli is a sure bet to be nominated for another Bram Stoker award.