Word Made Flesh

Why would two Eastern European meatboys want to whack an innocent cab driver? That's the question that occurs to Gilrein as Raban and Blumfeld press the gun barrel into his mouth. Does it have something to do with the ritual death-by-flencing of Leo Tani? Or does the answer involve Gilrein's ex-lover, now working as a librarian for a bibliomaniac gangster. Or maybe the whole thing has something to do with the Inspector, inventor of the notorious Methodology? And how does Bobby Oster figure in the mix, with his crew of murder-for-hire rogue cops who call themselves The Magicians?

To find the answers, Gilrein will drive the night streets of his hometown and face down more than one demon from his past. From the Vacuum, where child-artists are held captive in veal pens and forced to forge graphic novels, to the Houdini Lounge, where the second annual immigrant death-match is being marketed, Gilrein will wander the underworld, collecting stories and looking for absolution. In the end, he'll brush up against "Alicia's Tale" and learn new truths about the terrifying negotiations always taking place between the storyteller and the audience in the city of Quinsigamond.



Jack O'Connell is the author of five critically acclaimed novels, which have earned him something of a cult status. He won the Mysterious Press Discovery Contest for the Best First Crime Novel for Box Nine, which launched his career. This and his other novels Wireless, The Skin Palace, Word Made Flesh and The Resurrectionist are all published by No Exit Press.



'Hyper-real noir. A grotesque romance about genocide, language, bibliomania, doubt, obsession, worms, epidermis and sanctuary!'



'Word Made Flesh made the hair stand up on the back of my mind. Dark, cunning, and wickedly clever, it outsmarts you at just about every turn. Terrific stuff'



'In other words, this novel is a brilliantly unique combination of a disturbing horror novel, a detailed cyberpunk dystopia (without the computers), a work of surrealist beat literature and a complex noir detective story'