Dead man finds a life in Portland> Jack the Ripper’s knife carries a curse to Maine

BEYOND THE SHROUD by Rick Hautala, White Wolf Publishing, hardcover, 295 pgs., $21.99.

Being dead is a frustrating business, at least for David Robinson, who cashes in his earthly chips in Chapter 1 of Rick Hautala’s new novel, “Beyond the Shroud.” As the title suggests, this does not prevent David from being the story’s central protagonist.

Depressed by his recent divorce, a failing writing career, and the death of his only child, David goes out one night to jump off Portland’s East Street Bridge. He chickens out at the last moment but, ironically, is immediately killed by a speeding truck. That sure puts the fate in “fatality,” as the reader will soon learn.

The afterlife turns out to be a place called the Shadowlands, a gray, nightmarish landscape of familiar places from which David can see the living but cannot communicate with them. This limbo is ruled by a complex hierarchy of which wraiths like himself are the lowest rung. He is alternately pursued and guided by “reapers,” “ferrymen,” and packs of wild, slavering souls called barghests. A Dickinsonian ferryman explains that David’s soul, or corpus, is trapped here by the “chains he forged in life” that he must resolve to move on, or else be consumed by the nothingness of Oblivion. The chains are, of course, his attachment to his ex-wife and the spirit of his dead daughter, Karen.

Sound like enough for a good ghost story? But wait, there’s more! Hautala centers the tale on a knife once used by Jack the Ripper. Set in a deviously fictionalized Portland, Maine, the book opens with a small article in the Press Herald detailing the theft of the Ripper’s knives from a London museum. One of these knives mysteriously turns up in a Portland alleyway and is picked up by Tony Ranieri, a young law student and the new lover of David’s ex-wife, Sarah.

The knife carries a curse and Tony soon begins to experience homicidal urges. After a grisly incident with Sarah’s cat, he lusts after bigger game, namely Sarah.

Hautala skillfully manipulates the narrative point of view between the main characters, allowing the reader to anticipate the inevitable collision of forces. Sarah is largely oblivious to the danger she’s in until the very end. Tony is quickly reduced to a helpless puppet of evil. David’s role is more complex. He must evade the dangers of the Shadowlands, save his daughter from a fate truly worse than death, and find a way to warn Sarah about Tony.

Hautala uses bait-and-switch viewpoints, dreamscape scenery, and a tautly paced plot line to keep both his characters and the read off-balance and uneasy.

Through David Robinson, Hautala gives a vivid depiction of daily life in limbo, managing to maintain logical continuity in a nightmare reality. Sarah, although well-drawn, was somewhat disappointing, at least for this reviewer. She cries in every scene and chokes during her one attempt to stand up for herself. Nonetheless, the story works.

Players of White Wolf’s popular role-playing game, “Wraith: the Oblivion” will recognize the setting and terminology. “Beyond the Shroud” is one of a growing number of genre novels based on such games. This is not a new phenomenon; TSR, makers of Dungeons and Dragons, pioneered the market back in the early 1980s with their “Dragonlance Series.” Although the quality of such books has been mixed, today’s publishers are looking for high-profile writers with original ideas. Enter Rick Hautala, a horror and suspense novelist with 13 original novels and more than 40 short stories to his credit.

“I really had fun with this,” Hautala said during a recent telephone interview from his home in Westbrook. “I’ve never played the game and when White Wolf approached me with the offer, I asked what sort of restrictions I’d be under. They said that aside from using the Shadowlands setting and some terms from the game, the only requirement was that the main character had to be dead. That was easy enough. And although in my previous books I don’t usually go for the gory, with this one I really pulled out all the stops.”

The book’s pedigree should pose no limits on its readership. Free-standing and complete, “Beyond the Shroud” requires no knowledge of the game. The hardcover novel is nicely packaged, with an elegant, darkly sensual cover and a to-die-for jacket blurb from Peter Straub.

At story’s end, only one of the three Ripper knives is accounted for, leaving the door open for sequels. Hautala hints that he has a pretty good idea where the next one will turn up although there is nothing official in the works just yet. In the meantime, his latest original novel, “Impulse,” will hit the stands in November.

Lynn Flewelling is a free-lance writer and novelist who lives in Bangor.