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A Manhattan Ghost Story by T.M. Wright
01/02/2007 . Source: Sue Davies 
Pub: Telos. 274 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 9.99 (UK), $ 9.95 (US), $14.95 (CAN). ISBN: 1-84583-048-2. Buy A Manhattan Ghost Story in the USA - or Buy A Manhattan Ghost Story in the UK  check out website: www.telos.co.uk
There is rather a poignant point made in the forward to this reissue of a 25 year-old ghost story. The famous 'I see dead people' line from 'The Sixth Sense' was a final nail in the coffin of the film version of this book. You will see why when you read it, although I think the twist in the film is easier to withhold than within the pages of this novel.
Abner Cray is alone in New York. He is there to fill a coffee table book full of photographs for an eager publisher. Not wanting to stay in a hotel, Cray is happy to take his friend Art's offer of his swish apartment. He is at first dismayed to find a fellow tenant in the shapely shape of Art's girl-friend, Phyllis. Still, she is very attractive and doesn't seem to be overly attached to Art. His stay in New York suddenly got more appealing.
It's not long before things start to unravel. Phyllis is not what she seems and he is lead into a world that he has encountered before: the world of the unsettled dead. From small children to emaciated teenagers and a taxi driver that is literally out of this world, there is a sense of displacement, fear and a thirst to know what is next.
This is a really creepy book and you feel uncertain where it will lead you next. It manages to create an alternate world that Abner Cray breaks through, as if the veil between the worlds has been lifted. Once he knows about this world, it is hard for him to withdraw. It can only bring heartache and a real bleakness in the final pages. With dialogue that proves how much people withhold from each other and affecting descriptions of the landscapes that Cray moves through, this is an evocative book that fulfils its promise of being a ghost story in the tradition of M.R James and the like.
Sue Davies
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