Dying Is My Business
Nicholas Kaufmann
Published on October 8th 2013
Genres: Paranormal, Thriller, urban fantasy
Given his line of work in the employ of a psychotic Brooklyn crime boss, Trent finds himself on the wrong end of too many bullets. Yet each time he’s killed, he wakes a few minutes later completely healed of his wounds but with no memory of his past identity. What’s worse, each time he cheats death someone else dies in his place.
Sent to steal an antique box from some squatters in an abandoned warehouse near the West Side Highway, Trent soon finds himself stumbling into an age-old struggle between the forces of good and evil, revealing a secret world where dangerous magic turns people into inhuman monstrosities, where impossible creatures hide in plain sight, and where the line between the living and the dead is never quite clear. And when the mysterious box is opened, he discovers he has only twenty-four hours to save New York City from certain destruction.
GUEST REVIEW BY ISIS!
I would like to thank NetGalley for offering me access to works published by St. Martin’s Griffin, and St. Martin’s Griffin for granting me the chance to read this ARC, and introducing me to this author, all in exchange for an honest review. Though I received the e-book for free that in no way influences this review (which anyone who reads my reviews knows). In my world we would be able to rate books with 1/2 stars, but we can’t so my official rating is 4 stars, but my REAL rating is 4.5 stars.
Given his line of work in the employ of a psychotic Brooklyn crime boss, Trent finds himself on the wrong end of too many bullets. Yet each time he’s killed, he wakes a few minutes later completely healed of his wounds but with no memory of his past identity. What’s worse, each time he cheats death someone else dies in his place.
Sent to steal an antique box from some squatters in an abandoned warehouse near the West Side Highway, Trent soon finds himself stumbling into an age-old struggle between the forces of good and evil, revealing a secret world where dangerous magic turns people into inhuman monstrosities, where impossible creatures hide in plain sight, and where the line between the living and the dead is never quite clear. And when the mysterious box is opened, he discovers he has only twenty-four hours to save New York City from certain destruction.
I began this book with no memory of the teaser, so I only had the title to work from for trying to know what to expect, and frankly the title is too ambiguous to give me insight into the book. Having read the book I can honestly say that I am happy I had no expectations of the direction this story would go in, as it took me for such a ride that I even did some housework to postpone reading the final chapter. That is how badly I want this story to still be going on right now.
Nicholas Kaufmann really knows how to build a story. The world-building is minimal, taking our world and just making a few adjustments here and there. Those few tweaks continue to grow as time goes on, feeling completely organic and natural. As do the characters. Their abilities are certainly not natural in the world as we know it, yet they very quickly begin to feel as if they have always been there and we just didn’t know where to look until Kaufmann showed us. He has such tremendous control of his prose that I was able to clearly see every single scene he crafted. For example, his take on the criminal element that populate the story make it feel as if I am watching old film noir layered over Quentin Tarantino movies.
Trent is a fantastic main character in many ways, but especially because even he doesn’t know if he is playing the protagonist’s role, or that of the antagonist. His actions seem to argue for him being the bad guy, at least initially. Often I have found that characters with amnesia are a shortcut, allowing the author to be lazy, but certainly not in this case. Trent is only able to remember things that happened within the past year, but not anything else, not even his name. That gaping void inside his mind is what drives him so ruthlessly and constantly goads him to such extremes. His conflicted emotions throughout the story feel so real and raw that it almost hurts to read. His conscience is slowly eating him alive over something he has no understanding of and absolutely zero control over, and throughout the book all of these pent up emotions of his are finding cracks and beginning to leak out. Kaufmann shows incredible finesse with such intense scenes, and I love that he doesn’t go for the easy out either, but rather he makes his characters suffer the whole range of emotions – and they bring you along for the ride with them.
Underwood is a perfect crime lord, giving Trent his name and providing him a small cement block room in a hidden bomb shelter. He plays Trent’s desperation like a virtuoso, promising to solve the mystery of Trent’s past using all of his connections for the small price of a few easy favors. The vibe Underwood gives off is pure ruthless killer, lacking any morals whatsoever. It is so easy to envision him, along with his goon squad of muscle, yet they never become caricatures of themselves.Then there is Bethany, a strong woman, driven to attain perfection in all that she does. She is willing to lie to one of her closest friends and risk destroying their dreams, all in the name of duty. She has a code which she follows rigidly. As strong as she is, she too is flawed and human, yet she holds Trent in the palm of her hand. It’s not as though she can control him, but still she has a power over him, which he recognizes and does his best to resist. Like Bethany it would seem that all of the characters leave some sort of mark upon the reader, even if they only appeared in three or four pages out of the entire book.
From the very beginning this story is full of action, gaining momentum, speed, and power as the story unfolds. The arc of this story is graceful even as it plunges headlong into sheer horror. Time and again I think I have a mystery solved, only to find that the answer has eluded me, and the characters, like smoke going up a chimney. In fact there is only one mystery which I solved with Trent, before he ever explained it. Yet I remain mystified as to why no one else on the team figured it out as they were the very ones to supply him with the answer. The end of the book holds a huge reveal, and I will admit I had some suspicions about part of it, but I certainly didn’t put all the pieces together. I can confidently say that I will anxiously be watching for a sequel and hoping it comes it very, very soon. Though I shall certainly be checking out some of Kaufmann’s other works while waiting for my sequel!
About Nicholas Kaufmann
Nicholas Kaufmann is the Bram Stoker Award-, Thriller Award-, and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of numerous books and stories. He has also written extensively in non-fiction, including monthly pop culture columns on horror and dark fantasy for the popular websites Fear Zone and The Internet Review of Science Fiction, and a chapter on plotting short stories in the Writers Digest book ON WRITING HORROR. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife.
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