REVIEW: “Perisher” by Crystal Frasier

Review of Crystal Frasier, “Perisher” in Gwen Benaway, ed., Mother, Maiden, Crone, (Bedside Press, 2019): 134-148 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content warning: Murder.

Aggie is a Perisher, someone who, through the violent killing of another person, is connected to the ghost of the person they murdered. Fuchs is a German soldier who refuses to learn to speak any English or Spanish — Aggie’s fluent languages as she lives and works in Florida — but he can speak to other ghosts, and in this unlikely pairing the two of them hiring out their services to people who need answers only ghosts can give.

The tenor of this story was quite different from the much-more-fantasy oriented ones of the rest of the anthology. It felt much more like a crime drama than a fairy tale. I enjoyed the contrast that it provided, and the idea of Perishers in the first place — not like anything I’d read before.