THE DEAD HOUR
by
Thomas Grant Bruso
LGBT
paranormal horror
Publisher: JMS Books LLC
Publication Date: October 19, 2025
Page count: 291 pages
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SYNOPSIS:
PI Bradshaw
receives a late night call from a client desperate to find her missing
daughter. The woman asks to meet him at a storage unit in upstate New York. The
woman hangs up before Bradshaw can inquire further. Woken by the jarring news,
Bradshaw decides to meet the frantic, mysterious woman pleading for his help.
Working as
a private investigator has its drawbacks. Bradshaw often receives prank calls
from clients with run-of-the-mill requests and chooses his cases wisely. But
there is something unusual and unnerving about this particular call. The
hopeless plea in the woman’s voice and the anonymity of her demand ignite a
maelstrom of questions.
While
Bradshaw decides whether the call is worth pursuing, a young dead girl from the
Other Side visits him, demanding attention and seeking help for the request he
just received. Who is this spirit? What does she want? And how is she linked to
the caller?
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ENJOY AN EXCERPT:
Thunder cleaved the sky, pulling me out of my
foggy dream.
In the glass, a flash of white light and a dash
of movement scurried past my periphery.
I shuddered at the pale flesh of a disfigured
face sneering at me.
I turned.
Nothing -- a line of locked unit doors.
Then footsteps, sprinting away, and a gaggle of
laughter from around the corner, along the corridor.
“Hello?” I yelled, chasing another phantom. My
legs felt like rubber bands as I dashed to the end of the long hall. I stopped
at the stairwell door, out of breath.
The sound footsteps seized. But intoxicating
laughter followed.
“Who’s there?” I yelled. “This isn’t funny.”
A mockery of demonic laughter filled the air and
cooled my skin.
I stepped back, drew a breath.
Behind me, one of the two elevators dinged. The
doors opened.
Curiosity consumed me.
I should not have turned around to the sound.
The lights went out when I did, plunging me into
complete darkness.
Up ahead, the exit signs flickered.
I reached into my coat pocket and gripped the
small bottle of mace I carried with me when working cases. My heart thrashed
behind my ribs, like a pack of hungry rats gnawing through the lining of
muscles, tendons, and intestines.
A coldness coiled in the space behind me. A
round of knuckles tapped against my head, and the sound of teeth clicked close
to my ear. I ran toward the elevator doors. They closed before I reached it.
I banged hard on the doors and pressed the down
button several times.
In the dim light of the corridor, I noticed
shadowy movement from something skittering across the wall, a chittering
screech of insectile legs rushing at me in the dark.
I raced a few feet to the left of the elevators
to the stairwell door.
Locked.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Thomas
Grant Bruso knew he wanted to be a writer at an early age. He has been a
voracious reader of genre fiction since childhood.
His
literary inspirations are Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Jim
Grimsley, Karin Fossum, and Joyce Carol Oates.
Bruso
loves animals, reading books, and writing fiction, and prefers Sudoku to
crossword puzzles.
In
another life, he was a freelance writer and wrote for magazines and newspapers.
In college, he won the Hermon H. Doh Sonnet Competition. Now, he writes and
publishes fiction and reviews books for his hometown newspaper, The
Press-Republican.
He
lives in upstate New York.
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
Thomas Grant
Bruso will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.
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