Killing Ghost — Christopher Ransom

James Hastings once enjoyed a lucrative but hollow career pretending to be someone else. But when his wife Stacey dies tragically behind the Los Angeles mansion she so lovingly restored, James finds himself alone, spiraling into grief, and haunted by a familiar menace that is not ready for him to move on. Salvation comes in the form of Annette Copeland, a beautiful widow who moves into the house next door. James and Annette bond quickly over the spousal losses they have suffered, but as their unconventional romance escalates, Annette begins to exhibit uncanny manners and desires that belong to Stacey. Concerned friends and former lovers who try to come between them meet with increasingly diabolical fates, and James becomes convinced Annette's cosmetic changes are only the beginning of a horrific yet alluring case of possession. Driven to isolation far outside of Los Angeles, James and his unstable companion return to the deserted gated community of Sheltering Palms, where evidence of Annette's family tragedy is waiting for him, and James' investigations unwillingly draw the attentions of two dangerous personalities: Rick Butterfield, a delusional policeman who knows Annette's history and still pines for her; and Aaron, a 10-year-old boy who wanders the desolate subdivision nightly, waiting for his parents to come home. With every attempt to atone for his failings as a husband plunging James deeper into a nightmare struggle for survival, he must finally confront the ghost of the man he used to be, the origin of his resurrected other half, and the true face of the evil that has brought them together. Killing Ghost is at once a descent into psychological terror, a midnight meditation of the addictive nature of love, and a novel that redefines the ghost story for a culture obsessed with dark entertainments.