"If the Cardinal pinched the cheeks of his arse, the walls of the city bruised. They were that close, Siamese twins, joined by a wretched, twisted soul."

Capac Raimi arrives in the city clutching a suitcase, dreaming of making a mark as a gangster. He settles in with his uncle and begins learning the trade. The Cardinal takes him under his wing, giving him a start in the insurance business, but as people start to disappear, leaving Capac the only one who remembers, his curiosity outweighs his ambition and leads him down ever stranger paths.

Seeded from the grittiest of realities, the sense of phantasm grows until you are enmeshed in a tale that seems lost to reason, yet you keep going, hooked on the questions Shan raises.

Well-written, harsh, peopled with characters with an edge of familiarity who side-step the predictable, PROCESSION OF THE DEAD is an adult, noirish, urban fantasy; it lays down a solid structure upon which the rest of the trilogy may be built. Darren Shan is the nom de plume of Darren O'Shaughnessy, better known for his young adult books written as D. B. Shan.

PROCESSION OF THE DEAD is the beginning of the City trilogy, previously published in the UK as Ayuamarca in 1999. Book 2 enjoyed equal success a decade ago. Book three has never been published.

Book Summary

New York Times bestselling YA author Darren Shan makes his adult fiction debut with this first book in a new series set in a darkly imagined world called the City.

PROCESSION OF THE DEAD

What had I done before coming to the city? I couldn't remember. It sounded crazy but my past was a blank. I could recall every step since alighting from the train, but not a single one before.

Young, quick-witted and cocksure, Capac Raimi arrives in the City determined to make his mark in a world of sweet, sinister sin. He finds the City is a place of exotic dangers: a legendary assassin with snakes tattooed on his face who moves like smoke, blind Incan priests that no one seems to see, a kingpin who plays with puppets, and friends who mysteriously disappear as though they never existed. Then Capac crosses paths with The Cardinal, and his life changes forever.

The Cardinal is the City, and The City is The Cardinal. They are joined at the soul. Nothing moves on the streets, or below them, without the Cardinal's knowledge. His rule is absolute.

When Capac discovers the extent of The Cardinal's influence on his own life, he is faced with hard choices and his own soaring ambition. To find his way, Capac must know himself and what he is capable of. But how can you trust yourself when you can't remember your past?