Dark, disturbing and a bit creepy. A line from the book "death has ripples" kind of encapsulates the feeling of this story. I struggled to get started with it as it was difficult to see where it was going, but once you got there it was pretty awesome. Way convoluted but also way dark.
Alex Connor comes back to England after drifting aimlessly around Europe for two years. He told himself he was running away from his guilt over his wife's suicide six months before but he was kidding himself. He comes back because his good friend, Sarah, has been reportedly killed by Alex's brother, James, no less. He soon realises that that Sarah, a journalist, was looking into something very disturbing. As Alex learns more he knows less but the trail involves a bunch of people obsessed with death and images of death. Like I said, its dark.
There's a policeman, Paul Kearney, who has also become obsessed with solving a series of deaths and disappearances of women. The few bodies that have been found have been completely drained of blood. But in his spare time he indulges another obsession, one that haunts his nightmares and involves a revolting apparition known as 'the yellow man'. No, there is no horror - well no paranormal horror. The horror in this book is all by the hands of ordinary mortals (and let's not forget the yellow man). Its convoluted and clues are doled out sparingly, but it does make some sort of twisted sense at the end, not that that is any more comforting. Shudder.