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Firecracker by Sean Stewart (US title: Perfect Circle)
01/07/2006 . Source: Sue Davies 
pub: Orion Books. 227 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN 0753820595. Buy Firecracker in the USA - or Buy Firecracker in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk
Will Kennedy sees dead people. It's more common than you might imagine. This unusual detective fiction takes the point of view of a man they have nicknamed Dead Kennedy. His life has been blighted by his unusual gift and it is about to take a turn for the even worse.
Will has become notorious in his family for his peculiar skill. He wants more from his life but the dead stalk him. So far, it has lead to the spectacularly failed relationship with the love of his life and an ongoing problem with his twelve year-old daughter Megan. Not being honest about his psychic skill or curse leads to alienation from those he loves the most.
Salvation may be coming. Approached by a distant cousin about a haunting, Will finally sees potential in his abilities and maybe even a regular income. But just who is that in cousin Tom's garage and what is Will's long-dead Uncle trying to tell him? Meeting his potential client for an impromptu exorcism, Will uncovers a secret he just doesn't want to know. But the dead are unrelenting and he is forced to follow the mystery until it can conclude...unless it kills him first.
This tale of ghosts and an unlived life starts with somewhat of a cliché if you, like me, have seen 'The Sixth Sense'. But hold on, this is a reality for many people and taking this matter of fact approach to seeing 'spooks' results in an extremely likeable novel that takes aspects of the detective genre and mixes it up with the world of spiritualists, so popular in our modern world.
This is engaging stuff with a real life lead that lives down to our own expectations. Stewart creates his world which is close enough to our own to allow the reader easily relate to it. Emotional relationships are complex, like our own, and in the modern world marriage break-ups have all this kind of fall-out. Rooted as it is in the physical, the extension to the metaphysical is all the more believable and thus the page-turner is born. It's a short novel but is evocative and economic at the same time. More please.
Sue Davies
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