Dead Hand

By Valerie Nieman
Avig Press, , 258 pages

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Note: If you haven’t read the prequel to this novel, To The Bones, and plan to, please note that this review contains spoilers.

Since finishing Valerie Nieman’s thrilling, genre-bending novel To the Bones, I’d been hoping for a sequel. So I was delighted to learn of the forthcoming publication of Dead Hand, a sequel that is every bit as suspenseful, engaging, and satisfying as its predecessor. But you don’t need to have read the first book to enjoy this one. Nieman quickly brings readers up to speed on the main plot threads from the first book, preparing them for another heart-stopping ride.

First, a recap of my own. 

As in To the Bones, the main character in Dead Hand is Darrick MacBrehon, a government auditor who, in the first book, had planned to make a pitstop in Redbird, West Virginia, during a work trip. Then a dangerous encounter with a Redbird cop leaves him with a nearly fatal head injury. Fortunately, a local woman, Lourana Taylor, comes to Darrick’s aid. Eventually, the two of them become romantically involved. 

They also become united in a quest to find Lourana’s daughter, Dreama, who vanished after becoming a personal assistant to a member of the ruthless Kavanaugh family. The family owns not only the environmentally devastating Kavanaugh Coal and Limestone (KCL) but almost everything else in Redbird, including its citizens. The Kavanaughs guard their power jealously, and almost everyone who opposes them winds up dead.

Ultimately, the search for Dreama leads Lourana and Darrick to the Kavanaughs’ lair: the family mansion and home of the oldest living Kavanaugh, Eamon. Cruel to both his children and Redbird at large, Eamon possesses deadly supernatural powers rooted in the coal seams that fueled his family’s rise. Luckily, Darrick’s head injury left him with powers of his own: he can both hear others’ thoughts and emotions and push them back to their source–sometimes, with fatal consequences. 

Although an OK Corral-like showdown at the mansion removes Eamon from the living world (and leads to Dreama’s rescue), he’s far from vanquished. And that’s where Dead Hand picks up. Unknown to Darrick and Lourana, each time a patriarch in the Kavanaugh line is close to death, he can pass on his dangerous powers (as well as his memories and consciousness) to a male in the next generation. But that’s not all he bequeaths; he also passes on the powers, memories, and consciousness of other dead men in the Kavanaugh line, going back to Ireland.

It turns out that the inheritor of these powers is Eamon’s older son, Rory, who adds an intriguing complication to the Kavanaugh legacy, introducing a shade of gray to his family’s black-hatted rogues’ gallery. Rory has no interest in taking over KCL; in fact, he’s relieved that the company is in decline. Furthermore, he’s started to make efforts to ameliorate KCL’s destruction of Redbird’s environment. 

Another relatively gentle soul in the Kavanaugh line–Rory’s younger brother, Cormac, who died in the first book–is also possessing Rory, and he acts as his ally. However, the good in Rory and Cormac is no match for their evil ancestors’ powers. Soon, Eamon and other dead schemers in the Kavanaugh line force Rory to travel to Ireland, where Darrick and Lourana–under pursuit by Kavanaugh allies–have fled. (As discussed later, Darrick has roots in the country.) The goal of Eamon, especially, is to eliminate Darrick–and presumably also Lourana–once and for all.

From here, a suspenseful game of cat and mouse ensues, enriched by scenes that immerse us in the landscape, history, and folklore of Ireland. A major embodiment of this folklore is an Irishman named Cathbad, who claims to be a druid and who seems preternaturally knowledgeable about the conflict between Darrick and the Kavanaughs, and about its roots in Ireland’s past.

Understandably, Darrick and Lourana are skeptical about Cathbad and his druidism, and they’re concerned that Cathbad might be acting on the Kavanaughs’ behalf. But when the Kavanaughs (through Rory) become more of a threat than ever before, Darrick and Lourana seem to have no choice but to take a leap of faith into Cathbad’s world, and the new possibilities and powers revealed in it. Nieman’s writing about this world is vivid and enchanting, and it’s clear that she carefully researched druidism and other aspects of Irish folklore.

Also, Nieman masterfully portrays the possession of Rory by the dead Kavanaughs. Through Rory’s point of view, she conveys the physical and emotional turmoil of both wanting to commit violent acts and being repulsed by them. Through the points of view of Darrick, Lourana, and Cathbad, she conveys the terror of confronting the malevolent forces that might, at any moment, overtake Rory. For me, these “ambushes” by possessed Rory call to mind that iconic scene from the first “Alien” movie when a parasitic monster erupts from its human host.

The forces of good that Cathbad can muster hold out hope that Darrick and Lourana–and perhaps even Rory–might defeat Eamon and the other evil Kavanaughs yet again. That is, until an even more dangerous Kavanaugh power reveals itself: a force of evil embedded deep in the Irish landscape–a force even more malevolent than what the Kavanaughs tapped into in Redbird.

It happens that Darrick also has ties to Ireland. Dropped off at an orphanage as a baby, he’d long had no knowledge of his family history. But a DNA test “had drawn a tight circle” on Ireland. And over the course of the novel, it’s revealed that Darrick’s connection to the country runs even deeper: he seems to carry a legacy of the brehons–in Cathbad’s words, the “keepers of the peace and the interpreters of the law, even against the chieftains themselves.” This legacy might up Darrick’s game against the Kavanaughs. It also helps him see the powers that he discovered in Redbird in a new light. 

I should say here that these powers have been far from a blessing for Darrick. Given that they are both dangerous and difficult to control, they leave him–and Lourana–almost constantly on edge. They also make it difficult for Lourana to fully commit to Darrick, as much as she and Darrick love each other.

One of my favorite aspects of the novel is how Lourana wrestles with her fears about a future with Darrick: fears that are evident to him and heartbreaking for both of them. Nieman’s writing about this struggle–and about Lourana and Darrick’s relationship in general–is insightful and affecting.

To sum up, Dead Hand is riveting, emotionally complex, and beautifully grounded in the landscape and folkloric history of Ireland. I highly recommend it.