This honors project consists of both the primary text--a novel manuscript-and an introduction in which the author examines the creative process which led to the novel's genesis.The novel itself is a stylistic collage of genre types, and is an attempt by the author to pay tribute to detective, fantasy, and horror fiction by combining elements of these types of stories into one all-enveloping tale. However, the author has tried to avoid--or subvert--the standard cliches so often encountered in genre fiction, of whatever type.The novel also examines thematically the nature of human mortality, byfollowing the attempts of a protagonist to understand both living and dying.