Charles Butler, Death of a Ghost (Harper Collins, 2006)
If temporal physics, human sacrifices and the like are not your cup of tea, then don't bother reading Death of a Ghost.
It begins with a sixteen-year-old boy, Ossian, who is moving back to England with his artist father for the latter's work. From a car crash to being stalked by a swarm of ghosts, Ossian finds himself in the middle of a plot where his name just won't stop coming up. His childhood memories of Lychfont House come flooding back to him, but things seem changed somehow. Sue and Colin, son and daughter of the woman Ossian's father is once more working for and boarding with, ask him many questions about his ability to see ghosts, and then strange things begin to happen.
And this is where temporal physics come in. As I read Death of a Ghost, I found myself immersed in four different timelines with four different sets of characters. Two were based in the past, one with priests and the other with an alchemist/torturer, one in the present (with Ossian, his father and all the rest) and one that focuses on the Celtic Gods. Each has a character named Ossian, who just happens to be one of the Gods. Because he grows nervous on his wedding day, he runs away, dividing himself up in time so that there are now several Ossians. To have him returned to her, Sulis, his wife-to-be, must gather all those Ossians and make them into one, which literally means slicing all but one's throat. Yummy.
I cannot and will not say I enjoyed this book, for it was just too shifty. I mean this in two ways. First, the story shifts, from chapter to chapter, to different timelines, so you learn very little from each and grow steadily more frustrated. Second, you are kept in the dark, and the characters themselves are shifty, secretive folk, delving deep in the realms of torture, alchemy, witchcraft, and human sacrifice for the sake of a good crop (aren't they sweet?).
I couldn't bring myself to read much of it at a time, since things barely seemed to progress, and it was rather idiotic at times. HOWEVER, two things redeem it. One is the ending, where most things were finally explained. It was even a happy ending, no matter how confused. The second is that, despite all my whining, I must admit that the timelines are clearly divided by chapters and indicated by their own illustration. That way, at least you knew what timeline you were in and who the characters would be. It isn't so much keeping track of what timeline I was in that I did not like, it was more the fact that there were different timelines, period.
My greatest problem with Death of a Ghost is the fact that the present's Ossian doesn't really know what is going on and therefore does nothing to change anything. If he is to be the hero, shouldn't he be heroic?
Take Sulis for example. She is cruel and demanding to her servants, unforgiving, and madly in love with a fellow God she thinks of as a child. "Foolish boy," she has called him. Humph, I say; no wonder he fled. None of the characters, especially not her, are lovable or endearing. Perhaps if Sulis had been the heroine, and we saw her flight through time to retrieve her dear Ossian, the plot would have been more developed and she might have grown on me. As unpleasant as she may seem, she deserves better than to be an afterthought, since her adventures are at the core of the story, no matter how discreet the author makes them. Perhaps Charles Butler does not know how to write from a woman's point of view?
Speaking of which, Charles Butler has his own Web site that he created: www.charlesbutler.co.uk (it's your safest bet at finding anything out about him, because Charles/Charlie Butler is apparently a very common name). He lists his five other children/young adult fantasy novels, which are: The Lurkers, The Fetch of Mardy Watt, Calypso Dreaming, Timon's Tide and The Darkling. It appears to be dear Charles's trademark to use strange names for his characters.
