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 fortress-like Peck Clinic, whose doctors claim to have resurrected two patients who were lost in the void. What Sweeney comes to realize, though, is that the real cure to 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, Sweeney's search for answers leads to sinister back alleys, brutal dead ends, and terrifying rabbit holes of darkness and mystery.

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 wandering circus freaks. About loss and grief and rage. And, ultimately, about forgiveness and the depth of our need to extend it and receive it.

"Two worlds wrapped tight in gloomy gothic trappings vie for dominance in this engrossing, elaborately staged exploration of consciousness from O'Connell (The Skin Palace). Sweeney, an Ohio pharmacist, brings his comatose son, Danny, to the Peck Clinic, 'a sandstone monster on fifty acres of private land near Quinsigamond's western border.' Danny is all Sweeney lives for; he even studies the comic book Limbo, featuring a troupe of circus freaks led by the visionary Chick the chicken boy, for what his son may have imagined when his brain functioned normally. Like Stephen King in Richard Bachman mode, O'Connell digs for darkness as Chick and his companions, who inhabit the fantasy realm of Gehenna, encounter Dr. Lazarus Cole, 'The Resurrectionist' (stoned to death only to walk again) and dread the inevitable showdown with their nemesis, 'the mad doctor called Fliess,' in his 'enormous laboratory castle, the Black Iron Clinic.' Meanwhile, in the real world, cultists kidnap Sweeney in hopes of using fluid from Danny's brain to transport them all to Gehenna. This strange brew is sure to enhance O'Connell's growing cult status." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"This will be the novel that garners Jack O'Connell widespread sales and critical acclaim....A brilliant break-through novel." James Ellroy

Gritty noir fiction, mind-bending fantasy, and medical thriller combine in a gothic meditation on identity, the nature of consciousness, the power of stories, love, mad scientists, circus freaks, and ultimately forgiveness--both giving and receiving.

Jack O'Connell is the author of four acclaimed novels. He lives in Worcester, Massachusetts.

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