SYNOPSISHe sought to flee his tragic past.But when Thomas Usher hears a clockwork voice on the phone and sees ever-more disturbing visions in a derelict warehouse, Usher realises that he has to return home – for the sake of his own sanity. Meanwhile, a deadly figure from Usher’s past threatens to undermine the very fabric of reality.The follow-up to “Pretty Little Dead Things”, is skin crawlingly good, beautiful prose describing horrific crimes, disturbing visions and some of the most dreadful p...

Mystery is not my cup of tea because I need to focus to guess the killer in the near end; unfortunately, this is not the typical mystery book that you regularly read. This is something more mystical, part fantasy and tidbits of mystery to enjoy. I also remember some dark books like The Alienist by Caleb Car; I mean in comparison, they have few similarities. In the other hand, this is something special, something dark that make you pee while reading it.Who the hell is Thomas Usher? I don't have a...

Okay so here we have another one of my random gambles and I must admit I am greatly surprised by it - as you can see I have given it a full five stars although I am sure there will be many out there who have read it who will utterly disagree with me. Well I have no intention of defending myself for this choice (hey its free will after all) but I will try and explain my logic. First of all reading this book you cannot help but draw similarities to other stories out there - I can think of at least...

IT was written well and had suspense. One of the main characters, sarah, was likable was the best part of the book. Other than that, there was a lot of rape, pedophilia, and incest. not my cup of tea

Gary McMahon’s Dead Bad Things is the second of his Thomas Usher novels (following on from Pretty Little Dead Things). Thomas Usher is a man who can see the dead, following an accident in which his family died. As such, he is known to the Leeds police force for his ability to help them, although Usher views his power as a curse rather than a blessing.If the first novel welded McMahon’s distinctly nihilistic and downbeat style of horror to the police procedural genre, this second seems to be infl...

The follow up to 'Pretty Little Dead Things' is just as grim and gritty, and once it has you in its black grip it won't let go!This is an excellent urban horror tale featuring Thomas Usher, a character I've come to like immensely, although this book focusses more on police constable Sarah, and her now deceased, abusive policeman father. However, hers and Thomas' paths cross, culminating in a decisive and other-worldly battle.Recommended.

My first outing with Thomas Usher didn’t go so well. People died. He moped around. I wasn’t sure why or how I should care. Pretty Little Dead Things was a car crash of a dark and nasty novel that would definitely appeal to certain people who are not me. But still, I had Dead Bad Things on my tablet courtesy of my Angry Robot Books subscription, so I thought I would give it a chance.Gary McMahon brings Usher back to Leeds in Dead Bad Things, this time for far more personal reasons. I won’t preten...

Very disappointing. The two main protagonists, Usher and police woman Sarah Doherty don't even meet until the last quarter of the book. While the main villain, a demonic child molester is in Leeds, Thomas Usher spends most of the book in London receiving ominous warnings to both help someone and that he can't help them. A psychic who provides part of the warning is eaten by her own daughter. Virtually any character dies horribly as soon as they have nothing left to contribute. Various characters...

Two police officers find a dead boy in a house in Leeds. Constable Sarah Doherty is dealing with the demons left by her abusive father whilst psychic Thomas Usher is dealing with actual demons in London. This was dark, extremely dark, but quite a rollercoaster of a novel.

You can't beat a bitta McMahon. Another bleak, moody, well characterised and thoughtful novel. If Gary wrote uplifting tales of triumph-through-adversity featuring nice, middle class protagonists, he'd most probably be up there in the best seller lists. Thank a non-existent deity that he doesn't. We need real, gritty voices like this in horror fiction, and writers who can deliver this sort of quality prose. Although I was a little disappointed that Thomas Usher didn't feature as greatly in this

The sequel to Pretty Little Dead Things, which I read a while ago. I found that novel to be beautifully written, but unrelentingly grim. I found the worldview captivating, but the main character (Thomas Usher) too self-piteous to sympathise with. Without creating spoilers, I also questioned the worth of the grim ending, in which Usher literally loses everything, leaving the reader almost as hollow as the character. Dead Bad Things suddenly gives sense to all that. Where the first book has flaws

The follow-up to “Pretty Little Dead Things”, this is a very dark exploration of family secrets and lies, unnatural desires and cosmic horror. Usher has gone to ground, to try and get his head clear with what’s happened but finds that the dead (and an armless Rwandan refugee psychic) still have things to tell him. A minor character from PLDT - Sarah - is suffering too, haunted by her father both in death and from memories of her childhood. Everything seems to hinge around the ritualistic murders...

I'm going to round up and give this 3 stars, because once this book reached the end and some things were revealed it became much more interesting. I really only read this because it was a sequel to Pretty Little Dead Things and was curious what happened next to Thomas Usher. This book ended up not having much to do with him until the second half and centers more around Sarah and a mystery surrounding her police officer father. This book is definitely dark and deals with some sad and depraved cha...

A darkly fun follow up to “Pretty Little Dead Things” and satisfying conclusion to the Thomas Usher series, despite having a scene even more problematic than the smattering of problematic choices in the first book. This time, the forty-something Usher has sex with an exocticsized 19-year-old blind black girl, who (spoiler alert) turns out to be a demon or at the very least a murderer. Still, I would have liked a few more books in Gary McMahon’s haunted atheistic universe.

didnt enjoy it

My goodness. This book. If I had a list of top five things that have creeped me out this year, this would be on it.The writing is good for the most part, the story broken into three lines – at times I wondered how they would ever meet up, but they did, and in a way I hadn’t predicted.I hadn’t read the first book in the series (though I will be going back and doing so, now!), so I was a bit behind the eight ball when it came to the story so far. I think it might have helped, but I enjoyed it a lo...

Dead Bad Things is Book# 2 in the Thomas Usher series of horror novels. Book #1, Pretty Little Dead Things, was called the best horror novel of 2010 by both Dark Fiction Review and Horror Fiction Review. Dead Bad Things can be read as a stand alone novel; however, I might have better understood some of the prior events alluded to in it if I had read Pretty Little Dead Things first. This review comes with some strong cautions because Dead Bad Things is only for hard-core horror fans. It is defini...

a bit odd but good

I would give this a fourth star, and still might retroactively, but I read this without reading Pretty Dead Things first and so had no idea why I should give a crap about the first person narrator vs the policewoman's much more interesting, compelling and fully realized story. The policewoman's story and the other two narrative threads were pretty fantastic, though. If Usher had been more of a presence throughout, or if his status as the first person narrator in those few chapters were made more...

Thomas Usher is a man who can see the dead and walk through the veils between worlds. This makes him very attractive to an entity which desires his powers and who has been manipulating circumstances around him for years.Dead Bad Things is told from different points of view, including that of some very bad people and gives an insight into how people rationalize evil. McMahon leavens the darkness with light touches of humour here and there so it's not completely relentless.There was one scene I wa...