"I saw the possum before I saw the hand. It was an ugly thing, all bristly-haired and naked-tailed. It looked at me. It turned its bent-whiskered snout and looked at me . . . I saw something in its eyes that shouldn't have been there. And I couldn't take my eyes off of that thing nibbling on that finger. My brother's finger." The main character, Mike, witnesses the unthinkable when he was six years old: the sight of his dead brother, cold and pale, already being feasted on by vermin-a possum. The scene haunts him into adulthood, and, although married with his own children, it eats into his mind and dreams. But there is another story, another side, and the telling is bone-chilling. Burris's first published novel is a clever construct of two stories told in alternating chapters. The first is the journal documenting a young boy's descent into terrifying darkness and the sacrifices of those who put their lives on the line to save him. The second is an unfolding present day tale of a man who finds he must face the same horrors to protect those he loves. "Brothers is haunting; it keeps calling the reader back," says publisher Catherine Rayburn-Trobaugh. "John has created much more than a horror novel. Brothers examines not only the dark side of the human mind, but the possibility of even darker forces. Through his mastery of prose and his vivid portrayal of the human spirit and the bond between brothers, he has written a book that crosses genres and is a spell-binding read for any taste."