Joan of Arkham

Comic horror

L.J. Wilson

In progress

Ancient gods. Understaffed mortuary. No budget.

Joan Mitchell has a modest career plan: qualify as an Anatomical Pathology Technologist, keep her head down, and get through the working day without any of her clients offering an opinion. Unfortunately, her clients are dead, and they never stop talking.

Ever since a car crash when she was seven, Joan has been able to see and hear the dead. It’s a very useful gift, if your ambition is to be constantly heckled by a ghost called Dave who follows her everywhere, offering unhelpful commentary on her life choices.

But something is wrong in Arkham. The bodies are arriving faster than one small-town coroner can cope with, the accidents are getting stranger, and something ancient out on the moors is waking up hungry.

With a lazy boss, a jobsworth administrator and a grumpy pensioner ghost for backup, Joan is hardly the hero the situation calls for. But if the old gods break free, it won’t just be Arkham that pays for it. And the only person who can see what’s coming is a trainee with a dead man in the passenger seat.

A darkly funny, Lovecraft-tinged ghost story for readers who like their horror with a side of Pratchett.