Book Review: To Bury the Dead

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

To Bury the Dead     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Craig Spector
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Thriller
Harper Torch, Dec 2000, $6.99, 352 pp.

In Glendon, New Jersey, Paul Kelly is a model citizen. He regularly risks his life as a firefighter-rescue worker helping to save total strangers. He has been happily married for almost two decades to schoolteacher Julie. The couple has one daughter, sixteen-year old Kyra. To Paul, his world is near perfect even with his beloved child going through a rebellious stage.

While working a case involving a decaying corpse at a motel, Paul’s partner receives the call that starts the end of Paul’s life as he knows it. The victim becomes personal. An unknown assailant has brutally beaten Kyra. Paul arrives at the scene in time to enter the ambulance. In spite of his and the emergency crew on board, Kyra says a last word, “daddy”, before dying. Unable to cope with the senseless death of his beloved child, Paul expects the police to catch a brutally vicious looking monster. However his stereotype fails to prove true as the prime suspect seems more like an innocent looking teen. Paul needs to know why the kid resorted to violence.

TO BURY THE DEAD is every parent’s worse nightmare because no one wants to believe that bad things happen to good people. The story line works because readers understand the needs and relationships of the Kelly family. Augmenting the gloom is the specter of the killer who should look like a deadly animal. This work offers no solace or LIGHT AT THE END of the nightmare. Readers, who want gripping, well-written authenticity in their suspense novels, will ghoulishly enjoy Craig Spector’s in close thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner