The Resurrectionist

In four previous novels, Jack O'Connell has established a reputation as an author of literary-suspense and thriller-noir. This time, with The Resurrectionist, he has consolidated and surpassed that reputation with a story so mesmerizing that the reader can't figure out what is real and what's imaginary, what is threatening and what is make-believe.

The wraparound story in this multi-layered tale is about Sweeney, a pharmacist by trade, and his young son, Danny, the victim of an accident that has left him in a coma. Sweeney moves Danny to a hospital specializing in comatose patients, the Peck Clinic. The Doctors Peck, father and daughter, claim to have "resurrected" two patients from the void of deep coma. Prior to Danny's accident, he and Sweeney had been reading a fantasy series of comic books called Limbo, and it is around these stories that things get really interesting. There are circus freaks, weird stunts, an apparent "resurrection" or two, a long odyssey in search of a lost father--any number of plot lines and characters overlapping between what is real in Sweeney's life, and what might be a dream or drugged reality, and what is storybook fiction.

Alongside all the strange and convoluted events of the novel there is a compelling meditation on the power of story, the meaning of madness and sanity and the very nature of consciousness. This is more than fantasy; it is a masterful and wholly imaginative invention based on the sad reality of a father and son trying to find one another again. --Valerie Ryan

The journey was begun because of a father's love for his son, a journey driven by hope and anticipation, and by a belief that there had to be an answer.

Part classic noir thriller, part mind-bending fantasy, The Resurrectionist is a wild ride into a territory where nothing is as it appears. It is the story of Sweeney, a druggist by trade, and his son, Danny, the victim of an accident that has left him in a persistent coma. Hoping for a miracle, they have come to the forbidding, fortresslike Peck Clinic, whose doctors claim to have "resurrected" other patients who were lost in the void. What Sweeney comes to realize, however, is that the real cure for his son's condition may lie in Limbo, a fantasy comic book world into which his son had been drawn at the time of his accident. Plunged into the intrigue that envelops the clinic, Sweeny's search for answers leads to sinister back alleys, brutal dead ends, and terrifying corners of darkness and mystery.

Jack O'Connell has crafted a mesmerizing novel about stories and what they can do for and to those who create them and those who consume them. About the nature of consciousness and the power of the unknown. About psychotic bikers, mad neurologists, and circus freaks wandering in search of salvation. About loss and grief and rage. And, ultimately, about forgiveness and the depth of our need to extend it and receive it. Gripping, startling, mind-bending, and ultimately incredibly tender, The Resurrectionist is a masterpiece of invention that takes the familiar and makes it wholly new again. Visit www.enterlimbo.com.