Dead Lines

Critically acclaimed hard SF author Greg Bear shifts genre somewhat with this terrifying supernatural thriller. Peter Russell's career as a director of soft-core films has been wrecked by the easy availability of hard-core porn. Personally, he's in terrible shape, too: he's never recovered from his young daughter's murder two years ago and his best friend has just suffered a sudden, fatal heart attack The seeming salvation of Peter's professional life, an offer to work with a company manufacturing the "trans," a cell phone-type device with absolutely perfect reception, has a horrifying effect on his--and everyone else's--personal life when Peter realizes that the trans has the ability to contact the dead as well as the living.