City of Masks
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- R$ 54,90
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- R$ 54,90
Descrição da editora
"Superb...A thoroughly satisfying, disturbing novel." -Cleveland Plain Dealer In City of Masks, the first Cree Black novel, parapsychologist Cree and her partner take a case in New Orleans's Garden District that leaves them fearing for their own lives. The 150-year-old Beauforte House has long stood empty, until Lila Beauforte resumes residence and starts to see some of the house's secrets literally come to life. Tormented by an insidious and violent presence, Lila finds herself trapped in a life increasingly filled with childhood terrors. It takes Cree's unconventional take on psychology and her powerful natural empathy with Lila to navigate the dangerous worlds of spirit and memory, as they clash in a terrifying tale of mistaken identity and murder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hecht (Skull Session; The Babel Effect; etc.) introduces empathic investigator ("ghost buster" to the layman) Cree Black in a haunted house tale set where else? in a storied New Orleans mansion. Cree, an investigator of paranormal phenomena with a slick Seattle office, is retained by the vaguely sleazy Ronald Beauforte, the last scion of a decaying New Orleans family. His sister, Lila, is losing her mind, and she insists it is because her family's ancestral mansion is haunted. Cree is summoned South to see if she can use her empathic talents to suss out the ghosts and prevent Lila's disintegration. Cree is still nursing years-old grief over the death of her husband, even talking with him in her mind; this accounts for her sensitive psychic antennae, and also explains why she's loath to acknowledge the unsubtle romantic attentions of her business partner, Edgar. Since Edgar is tied up with another case, Cree has to fly solo to bayou country, facing down the Machiavellian Beauforte family matriarch, local hoodoo practitioners, and even a menacing hired gun with the sobriquet "Loup Garou." Hecht explains aspects of modern-day ghost hunting and offers a Faustian red herring in the form of a handsome young psychiatrist. Yet while he paints a rich, compelling picture of the world of paranormal research, the plot holds few surprises, and the characters' psychology and motives tend to be overexplained. Hecht's previous thrillers have been impressively sophisticated, but this predictable though atmospheric effort may cause readers to think they, too, have supernatural powers: they know how the book will end well before they've finished it. Author tour.