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Zusatztext "Every now and then a book comes along that breaks the mold of everything that has gone before. Death Watch is such a book. At once a profound and moving meditation on death! and an extraordinary edge-of-the-seat adventure! it is one of the most original and powerful novels I have read in my lifetime." — John Matthews! New York Times bestselling author of Pirates and Arthur of Albion Informationen zum Autor Ari Berk is the author of the Undertaken trilogy and Nightsong , illustrated by Loren Long. He works in a library filled to the ceiling with thousands of arcane books and more than a few wondrous artifacts. When not writing, he moonlights as professor of mythology and folklore at Central Michigan University. He lives in Michigan with his wife and son. Visit him at AriBerk.com. Klappentext When 17-year-old Silas Umber's father disappears! Silas is sure it is connected to the powerful artifact he discovers! combined with his father's hidden hometown history! which compels Silas to pursue the path leading to his destiny and ultimately! to the discovery of his father! dead or alive. Death Watch H E SHOULD HAVE GONE HOME . It was after eleven, so he’d have been home already. Arguing with his wife. Lying to his son about work and the hours of his work and the kind of work he said he did back in Lichport. Amos Umber’s lies had become habitual. He would invent something about the corpse to tell his son. That’s what Silas always wanted to know. The grisly details. What happened to them? How did they die? What did it take to put all the pieces back in place? How did he treat the flesh so the family wouldn’t be reminded there was anything other than sleep waiting for them at the end of days? It was their little ritual. Father and son. Lie stitched to lie. An elaborate collection of details and variations to make the stories he told sound real, momentarily fascinating, but also common and forgettable. Corpses and coffins, chemical order forms, and a dark pin-striped suit. So many details it almost held together if no one pulled at too many threads. No matter that his son assumed that “Undertaker” meant “mortician.” No matter that in the Umber family an Undertaker was something else entirely. Amos hated lying to his son, but he had made a promise to his wife. He’d sworn not to say anything about the Undertaken, or Wanderers, or the Restless. He’d sworn not to talk to Silas about his side of the family or the family business in Lichport, where they all once lived together briefly when Silas was a baby. Most of what he told his son was a lie, but not all of it. No matter how many minute details he fabricated, he always tried to say something about the Peace. At the end of each evening’s tale, that’s what he told his son he tried to do in his work: bring peace. And at least that part, that most essential act, was true. On nights like this one, he longed to actually live inside his story-life, just doing the easy stuff: Bag ’em. Bury ’em. Arrange the flowers, line up the chairs for the visitation, hold the hands of the bereaved. But these were not part of his calling. His work began after the funeral. Or when there hadn’t been a funeral because the body was lost and rumors were making folk restless. Or because something so awful happened that folk couldn’t bring themselves to speak about it at all. As sure as a curse, secrets and silence brought them back and kept them wandering. If they couldn’t find the Peace … that’s when his dark and difficult work began. He should have gone home. But instead of driving his car on the road over the marsh, back to Saltsbridge and the other ...
