Hammers on Bone

By Cassandra Khaw

Book Overview

Cassandra Khaw bursts onto the scene with Hammers on Bone, a hard-boiled horror show that Charles Stross calls "possibly the most promising horror debut of 2016." A finalist for the British Fantasy award and the Locus Award for Best Novella

John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He's been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid's stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.

He's also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he's hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.

As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He's infected with an alien presence, and he's spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765392712
• ISBN13: 9780765392718
• Release Date: October 2016
• Publisher: Tordotcom
• Length: 112 Pages
• Weight: 0.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.9" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Short, Sweet & Smoking

Khaw is an amazing writer. She gets to the heart of the noire style - and as someone who isn't too keen and first person POV? She got me with her absolute characterization within the way she writes itself. This was a mix of cosmic horror (think Lovecraft - the a-hole - and Derleth) and the noir genre where a monster or two are cohabitating inside the body of the guy who made a deal at some point. But he wants to do something less awful that can control the other beings making it to our world. When a 10 y.o. boy asks our detective, John Persons, to kill his step-dad for all the money in his piggy-bank, Persons knows he's dealing with something sinister. After all, how often does a literal kid look an adult in the face and ask them to do something PERMANENT about their abuser? There are major twists and turns packed in a little over 100 pages, where not one word goes to waste. The theme at the end though: even the vulnerable and seemingly weak can take a hammer or 12 to the bones of their tormentors. Great tale, great message, vibrant and descriptive writing (sometimes very grotesque but always showing rather than telling), and a joy to read. Also: Persons Non Grata is the duology name and it's the funniest Latin pun on a rando monster I've ever seen. So clever! Gotta love that. (Persona non grata in Latin means a person who is wholly unwelcome - usually used in the context of diplomats or foreign dignitaries - and let me tell you: Detective Persons is absolutely wholly unwelcome and unwanted by EVERYONE, including the people he's trying to help - and himself.