In The Failure Murders, Kara Grey finds herself haunted by the ghost of the lead character in the story that she wrote - when her story fails to connect with the intended audience. Her deeply flawed psyche makes her combat alcoholism, lust, violent tendencies, and a deep desire to save lives and be a hero. Meanwhile, a girl disappears, and there must be a connection - but her troubled friend Leo Grace says that she is at an abandoned sanitarium. They take their friends to a nightmarish place with ghosts - some hideous and others quite wonderful. When the ghosts - and the truth behind the insidious evil - gets out of the sanitarium and into Darklake, Illinois, Kara and her friends must fight for the survival of themselves and their town. She and her friends are deeply flawed, wonderful people who fight as much with themselves as they do with the horror monsters who threaten them.