Abused and withdrawn, the child of a troubled marriage, young Flam Grub takes refuge in books.

When the latchkey kid instinctively gravitates to the bookstore beneath his family's flat, his obsession crystallizes as he falls under the tutelage of Page Turner, the shop's owner, and grows up as a lover of literature, and especially poetry.

Flam, however, carries the burden of a pathologically introverted nature, and the perceived shame of an unusual name that brings him nothing but abuse from his peers. As adulthood arrives, the angst-ridden and suicidal Flam must struggle to escape the netherworld of his own life.

This coming-of-age saga follows Flam as he attends vocational college to train as an undertaker, then enters the funerary profession as a wide-eyed neophyte. Hypersensitive and lonely, he pours his aching heart out into poetry, and fights to hold on. Thanks to his intelligence, decency, and spirituality, Flam bravely finds his way into the light—influenced by the characters he meets along the way.

Quirky, sometimes dark, sometimes funny, but ultimately uplifting, this book will have you rooting for the unforgettable Flam Grub.

Desperately fleeing for his life, Brad Evans escapes Manhattan and takes refuge in a trailer in the New York countryside. There he writes an exposé of Phasmatia, the world's first great internet religion, and its megalomaniacal unholy messiah, Sky Fisher.

As one of the trio of ad men who schemed to concoct Phasmatia, Evans certainly knows where all the skeletons are buried, and is ready to tell all—provided he manages to live long enough. His close friend and co-conspirator, Stan Shiu, whose technical genius helped spark the religion's rapid rise, has already been murdered by Sky Fisher's retinue of killer monks. Now they're searching for Evans.

The whistle blower recounts the religion's genesis, and growth from a get-rich-quick Dot Com scheme to the Next Big Thing, spreading like wildfire over the web ... and the planet. He also exposes the corruption and power lust that festers at the top, even while his hope for a potential new era of spirituality and faith burns brightly.

The events in this gripping digital age novel could easily happen tomorrow. Our wired age of social networks, virtual worlds, and media manipulation is examined in the context of humankind's timeless need for spiritual sustenance and divine hope.

Hear Dan talk about skyfisher on CBC Radio's Fresh Air