Murray is befriended by Pearl, the cemetery caretaker's daughter, who urges him to track down the voice and figure out to whom it belongs. Recently a new voice has emerged from the ether of the cemetery, and although at first all Murray can discern are garbles and static and fragments of words, he can tell the voice is in distress. If he concentrates really hard, he can see them, too, in his mind's eye. He spends his free time in the cemetery near his home where his only friends, Dearly and Beloved, 'live.' The quotes are necessary because, well, Murray can talk to the dead and they talk back they are his only friends. Murray's in high school and he's an outcast without any friends. However, the short chapters in this novel alleviated this annoyance and helped keep the pace moving at a quick clip. Sometimes the device of rotating point of view annoys me because usually just when things really start happening from one point of view is when the action shifts to the next point of view. The novel tells its story in rotating third person point of view that helps develop the story from multiple perspectives that serves to heighten the thrilling suspense.

There is a subtle supernatural element that is integral to the plot that is done well, too. Its mystery is twisty and just when you think everything's been figured out, a wrench gets thrown into the works. It is well written, well plotted, and always suspenseful-nail-bitingly so in some parts. Considering its subject matter, it's not particularly serious or dark, but I wouldn't call it funny. Witty I agree with but I'm not sure I would use humorous or funny to describe this novel. In a blurb on the book jacket the author Christ Crutcher calls Dead Connection witty and humorous or maybe he used the word funny. Dead Connection is the debut Young Adult fiction novel from Charlie Price.

Dead Connection by Charlie Price