cover image Double Vision

Double Vision

Hamelin Bird. Piper, $14 trade paper (268p) ISBN 978-1-7354891-1-7

Bird’s creepy, nightmarish debut finds former police detective Michael Lunsmann undergoing a midlife crisis. A few years earlier, his career was derailed after his wife divorced him, and he asked to be demoted to patrol. Now, he’s an overweight alcoholic, plagued with guilt about his lack of a relationship with his 15-year-old son, Doug. After another failed attempt at connecting with Doug, Lunsmann awakes in a hospital bed, only to learn that he almost bled to death after being shot. He has no recollection of what happened, a memory gap that feels ominous when he learns that several teens who recently went camping have vanished, and he fears his shooting is connected with their disappearance. When Lunsmann later investigates, he discovers that almost 60 people have disappeared in the surrounding area over the past decade without explanation, and that what happened to the teens may have involved a breach of “some unseen boundary between this world and the next.” Bird keeps readers off-balance as he builds toward a satisfying conclusion. Fans of thrillers with a supernatural tinge will be pleased. (Self-published)