ALBRECHT DRUE, GHOSTPUNCHER.

In Miller’s debut paranormal novel, a heavy-drinking former prizefighter discovers a supernatural talent for combating ghosts.

When New Englander Albrecht Drue was struck by a Coca-Cola truck eight years ago, it ended his burgeoning boxing career. The accident also won him enough settlement money to allow him to while away nearly a decade, spending his time boozing, brawling, and mooning over Charlene, the diligent bartender of a local watering hole known as the Cyclops. On the night Al receives his final settlement check—and the devastating news that Charlene is getting back together with her flaky DJ boyfriend—he goes on a bender and gets in a bar fight that spills out of the Cyclops and leaves Al stranded in Jennings Heights, the most destitute part of town. After seeking shelter in an abandoned building haunted by the ghost of pimp Silky Cobra Watkins, Al discovers that he has a crucial talent: He can punch ghosts straight into heaven, hell, or oblivion. It turns out that Al isn’t the only one engaging with the spirit word. Dax Vagance of the TV show Ghost Quest has secretly dragged his crew of hangers-on to town to discover exactly what’s lurking out at Cardinal’s Crest—the centuries-old, abandoned fortress on Bitburg’s outskirts known as the “most haunted site in America that no one’s ever heard of.” If Dax’s hunch is right, he’s about to reveal a spiritual bombshell that could save his show and reaffirm his own faith in the supernatural. But the Bitburg Supernatural Squad, Al’s drinking buddies, are desperate to convince Dax of the real danger of Cardinal’s Crest—a place from which no one has ever returned alive.

Al’s world bursts onto the page in Miller’s vibrant, spirited prose. Each line is rich with bloody, shadowy images and the brisk banter of bar regulars. Despite Al’s flaws and predilections, readers will root for him to triumph over undead evil and his own personal demons. Al’s careful, consistent kindness to the weak and the powerless provides a rewarding counterweight to his willingness to throw punches. The action sequences are grotesque, visceral, and inventive, with deaths served up in a variety of spine-chilling, bloody ways (“bodies bursting with a rush of flash-fried meat and gore”). Miller does strong work in portraying the shadowy spiritual underbelly of daily life in Bitburg. But for all the punchiness punctuating Al’s experiences, the dark humor sometimes falls flat. The violence, particularly against women, feels gratuitous and gets played for increasingly bitter laughs. Miller’s sharp asides are sometimes deliciously ironic but often needlessly, hollowly provocative. The chaotic, gritty, and Technicolor nature of Al’s world makes for a propulsive read, but this momentum crashes out in a rushed conclusion that will leave readers with far more questions than satisfying answers. The vast cast of supporting characters is intriguing, but it suffers from underdevelopment. The question of why so many of these personalities have lingered for years in the Cyclops’ boozy embrace also remains unclear.

A pulpy, haunted novel that fails to land its final punch.