Ray Garton The Loveliest Dead

The Loveliest Dead

Ray Garton

Cemetery Dance, Jan 2006, $40.00, 375 pp.

ISBN: 1587671336

Three year old Josh Keller screams in severe pain waking up his sleeping parents. His migraine medication fails to relieve him from his latest headache, in what has been an almost unrelenting series of pain suffered by the kid. Jenna and David decide to rush him to the hospital, but he dies in his mom's arms.

Several years later, the Kellers have not recovered from their loss. They move to a new home with their other child Miles and his maternal grandmother Martha, who is recovering from a debilitating stroke; Jenna and David hope to put the tragedy behind them. However, they begin seeing and hearing weird things. Jenna sees a toddler who appears and disappears magically out of thin air; Martha watches children playing on the backyard swings only to see them vanish; Miles watches an obese man coming from out of his floor every night; finally David is awakened every night by the sound of children in the backyard. They will soon learn from a neighbor Lily the psychic that the violent truth is in the past in the basement.

This is a strong haunted house tale, that though somewhat typical of the genre, grips the audience because there is a sense that Josh is involved, either reaching towards his parents from the grave or through a psychologically disturbed mother. The storyline provides a deep atmosphere of foreboding, that something malevolent resides in the new house will bring danger to the living occupants, while at the same time believe that the love for his parents and the innocence of the late toddler would never let that happen. Ray Garton provides a strong horror tale, refreshed by the question of whether Josh is the center of the paranormal happenings.