Archive for Book Reviews
Monsters – Book Review
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Monsters
Paul Melniczek
Dark Regions Press
Trade Paper, 136 pages, $16.95
Review by Sheila Merritt
Legendary monsters know no territorial bounds. They exist in remote regions and populated cities. Paul Melniczek takes a globe trotting gander at all manner of beasties in his aptly titled short story collection, Monsters. There be dragons; a variant of the creature of the lagoon; devils; and other nasties of odd appearance. Superstitions and the arcane harmoniously haunt in well drawn settings. From Arizona to Australia; from the mountains of Tibet to the streets of London; Melniczek harnesses his hellions with ample skill and scares.
In the tale “Twilight’s Embrace,” for example, the monster is indeed horrifying in visage: “The thing was charcoal black, leathered wings folded across its scaled back. The face was hideous, the features exaggerated and monstrous. Gaping fangs hung over huge rubbery lips. All four appendages ended in massive, disproportionately large claws. And the terrible eyes gleamed the color of cold ashes, promising death.” As odious as this beast appears, the real villains of the piece are human; heartless and heinous in their actions.
There is supernatural seduction in “In the Night, Heels Clicking.” A sophisticated, cynical scientist finds herself attracted to a mysterious artist. He taunts her about her skepticism regarding the paranormal; indicating she might be using rationality as a defense against suppressed memory/feelings. The banter between the duo is highly entertaining: It is simultaneously flirtatious, and sinister.
Paul Melniczek also does a fine job creating mood and atmosphere. “The Bunyip,” set in an isolated area of Australia, possesses an excellent aura of ambience. Consider this evocative passage: “Great bullfrogs hoisted throaty calls across the placid waters, welcoming the advent of dusk from their floating lily pad panoplies. The droning of a thousand insects rose and fell in discordant melodies, their diminutive forms buzzing and shrieking between lichen-embraced trunks, skimming recklessly above the water surface, dancing and spinning in their endless ritual of cycle – feeding, mating and dying, their short-lived progeny rising once again from the muck and loamy soil.”
Eight eerie tales comprise Monsters. Each is unconventional; intriguingly different. The lure of the unknown motivates the book’s characters into hunting a universe of the unusual; the reader will enthusiastically follow their trail.
The Last Deep Breath – Book Review
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The Last Deep Breath
Tom Piccirilli
Tasmaniac Publications, 2010
Novella, 124 pages, $14.00
Review by Wayne C. Rogers
Before I delve into the review of Tom Piccirilli’s newest novella, The Last Deep Breath, allow me to mention that Tasmaniac Publications, which is based in Australia, now has an American distributor. That means you can get your orders faster and at less cost for shipping. It also means there is now no excuse for not picking up copies of The Nobody and The Last Deep Breath, if you’re fan of this extremely gifted writer.
But, what do I think about Tom Piccirilli and his novella, The Last Deep Breath?
Being an avid reader of not only horror fiction, but also crime, mystery, suspense, action thrillers, and neo noir, I have to say that Tom Piccirilli is definitely a cross between Raymond Chandler and Andrew Vachss. You’ll know exactly what I mean if you read The Cold Spot, The Coldest Mile, The Nobody, and The Last Deep Breath. But, be warned. Tom Piccirilli takes no prisoners. Picking up and reading one of his books is like becoming a crack addict. You simply can’t stop with one and have to find everything he’s written to keep from pulling your hair out in angst and sticking your head into the oven with the setting on high. That’s how talented this author is.
The Last Deep Breath is a novella of only a hundred pages (there’s a twenty page short story, “Between the Dark and the Daylight” at the end of the book), but it reads so fast that it seems like ten. The story deals with a hard-nose character named Grey, who comes home one day to his apartment in the Village, only to discover his sister, Ellie, on the outside stoop with a four-inch blade in her side. Though he hasn’t seen her in a decade, he feels responsible for her and tries to help her with the wound and by giving her a place to crash for however long she needs. Unfortunately, Ellie quickly disappears, taking what cash her brother as saved. The only thing Grey has to go on is the name of a person she mentioned-Johnny.
This eventually leads him on a journey across country to hopefully find the man he thinks stabbed her. On his way to Los Angeles, Grey will encounter a lot of women in bars who take one look at him and think he’s just the right man for murdering their husbands. He manages to make it to the city of dreams without killing anyone, but gets entangled with an ex-actress named Kendra, who’s just as tough as he is and knows the inside and out of La-la Land. Grey will encounter a lot of unusual people during his search for Johnny – a crazy, manipulating agent who wants his wife killed, a porn actor who’s hung like a horse and always gets a round of applause whenever he has an orgasm during the filming of an X-rated movie, and a pimp/drug dealer who finds out about love the hard way. Nothing is as it seems in The Last Deep Breath, and the ending will have you salivating for more adventures with Grey.
Why Tom Piccirilli isn’t on everybody’s bestseller list with each new outing is a question that can’t be answered, much like the one about what was here before the Big Bang fifteen billion years ago. This guy is as good as they come, and each story or novella or novel he writes is something that’s sought after by his many fans like the quest for the Rosetta stone. If you want damn good stories and hard-ass characters, then Piccirilli is your man.
Get a copy of The Last Deep Breath, and then go back and read The Nobody and any of his other novels that you can get your hands on. This is an author whose books you want on your shelf. This is also a writer who knows how to tell a great story that people actually want to read!
Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter – Book Review
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Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter
Brian P. Easton
Permuted Press
Trade Paperback, 336 pages, $14.95
Review by Sheila Merritt
Obsession; compulsion; drive: Attributes that can be positive or negative, depending on their circumstances. In Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter, author Brian P. Easton explores the pros and cons of such myopic focus. Vendettas and vigilante violence extract a price. Sacrifices include loss of loved ones, and a surrendering of the soul for the sake of systematic slaughter. Over the many years in which the novel takes place, the protagonist evolves into an efficient killing machine. What begins as a teen-ager’s journey to avenge his father’s death, turns into a lifelong pre-occupation with waging war with werewolves. Easton weaves Native American folklore into this intense character study. The result is a power punch of a book; that is poignant in its treatment of retaliation as a form of redemption.
Set in various locales in Canada and the United States, the narrative follows Sylvester James as he tracks the lycanthrope responsible for his dad’s demise. Along the way, he encounters and dispatches other werewolves. One is a femme fatale, for whom their sexual encounter proves fatal. Sylvester describes her post mortem appearance thus: “Her arms and shoulders were sinewy and hirsute, much of which seemed to have spread from her pits, but still distinctly feminine. Feet and hands remained characteristically human, except they’d lengthened into fearsome claws instead of painted nails.”
Because of his skills, that get honed in a stint with the military, Sylvester finds work hunting psychopaths as a sideline. As he points out, silver bullets work just as well against humans. During the travails and travels, he engages in rocky romantic relationships. Sylvester’s vocation validates the statement that the course of true love never runs smooth. The three women he becomes involved with are interesting and well drawn characters. They grant him the opportunity to drop his guard a bit, and let his humanity (which he is always at risk of relinquishing) to shine through. Inevitably, there is danger when that happens.
Brian P. Easton does an outstanding job in depicting the first person narrator. It is impossible not to like a fellow who is wryly observant and capable of being scathingly descriptive: “The layout was the same, but the carpet was a vomitous green, the furnishings were mismatched, and the wallpaper pattern was a hypnotic repetition of scratchy, stylized brown trees.”
Autobiography of a Werewolf Hunter is a detailed delving into a heart of darkness: An ache resides there, and it can only be assuaged with blood.
Vampires Don’t Sleep Alone – Book Review
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Vampires Don’t Sleep Alone: Your Guide to Meeting, Dating and Seducing a Vampire
Elizabeth Barrial and D. H. Altair
Ulysses Press
Trade Paper, 216 pages, $12.95
Review by Sheila Merritt
Twilight – The Erogenous Zone: Vampires Don’t Sleep Alone will guide you to another dimension; a dimension of sound, sight, and other sensations. This is a “how to” book that gets to the point of what’s at stake in nocturnal necking with nosferatu. That throb in the vein could be deadly, and there in lies the attraction: “If your primary goal is to enter a relationship with power, passion, politics, and domination at its core, then romancing a vampire is right for you.”
The basics of amorous activities with the undead are copiously covered. Chapter titles include: “The Van Helsing Issue: What to Do When Your Friends Disapprove” and “Shapeshifting: A Form of Foreplay?” Within such topics, the pitfalls of ardor are tantalizingly played upon: “It is going to take time before you can begin to ascertain whether he is being charming and gracious because he is enamored of you, or if he is buttering you up for his feast.”
Each instructive chapter is headed by a memorable quote that relates to the topic at hand. A fine acerbic example comes from Mark Twain: “I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him.” Irreverence and irony are a winning combination, and the co-authors of Vampires Don’t Sleep Alone know that very well. D.H. Altair is the nom de plume of Del Howison; author/editor, and the owner of Dark Delicacies book store. His collaborator on this volume is Elizabeth Barrial, a co-owner of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab; purveyors of perfumes “whose thematic focus is literature and gothic cultural anthropology.”
Together, Barrial and Altair deliver sage advice about the world of occult dating and mating. It’s hard to dispute their common sense approach to the subject matter. When discussing the downside of a romantic entanglement with a ghost, for example, they are clear eyed in their evaluation: “Ghosts are irrevocably stuck in the violence of the moment they were killed and will spend most of their time relating the details of the incident ad nauseum [sic]. Conversations with ghosts tend to be one-sided streams of consciousness.”
For those interested in undertaking an intimate interview with a vampire, this is essential reading. It reminds that pragmatism can be eclipsed by desire, while under the spell of a new moon; dangers and delights await.
Dog Blood – Book Review
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Dog Blood
David Moody
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 336 pages, $23.99
Review by Sheila Merritt
“Kill them, honey.” Not typical words for a parent to utter to a child. Dog Blood, however, is not a typical book. In this sequel to the superbly disturbing Hater, David Moody defies the norm. Using mostly first person narrative, Moody cunningly constructs compassion towards characters who are innately unsympathetic. Concern about the welfare of people whose cardinal cause is maniacal murder is a tough sell, but the author is startlingly adept at maneuvering points of view. He penetrates the psyche of his protagonist, allowing the demented to have depth.
Danny McCoyne is a Hater. He hates The Unchanged; beings who don’t share his overwhelming desire to savagely kill others. The Unchanged, in self-defense, have mobilized. This fuels Hater rage, giving them a rationalization for their conduct; self defense has come into play, it feeds a need to unite. Danny worries about the fate of his young Hater daughter, the only member of his family that is like him; he wants to protect her from the enemy. During the odyssey to find her, he faces mind bending manipulation and the horrible reality of the war’s ramifications.
Depicting a society in tatters, Moody employs intensely harrowing images of an apocalypse: “Rats and other vermin scavenge through the mountain of garbage in broad daylight, suddenly cocksure and confident, no longer afraid of man. Birds peck at bodies, and there’s a steady trickle of stagnant, foul-smelling water running away from the huge decaying mound. It pools in the gutter and spreads out into the road, the street drains blocked. It’s become a black lake, the gentle breeze making its surface ripple, floating bits of rubbish bumping around like odd-shaped boats.”
The novel features figures driven by a passion for carnage. The ultimate executor of such an appetite is Ellis: Danny’s five year old daughter. A pint sized killing machine, she even gives her proud papa some pause. Like Lord of the Flies on hallucinogenics, the kid personifies the nightmare of the out of control youngster. No matter how often the mantra “She’s my child” gets recited, this is progeny who tests the boundaries of parenting.
With Dog Blood, David Moody solidifies his grasp on a world gone amuck. He finely focuses on the plight of one character’s reactions to a very different universe, and is cagey and canny in his applications of symbolism and allegory. He plucks the heart of conflict and wrenches out a profoundly emotional study of unstable alliances.
Book of Shadows – Book Review
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Book of Shadows
Alexandra Sokoloff
Published by St. Martin’s Press
Review by Tim Janson
The body of a young woman is found at a city dumpsite. Her head and one of her hands are missing and strange symbols are carved into her chest. For Boston homicide detectives Adam Garrett and Carl Landauer, it’s the start of a long night and a grisly case that points to a ritualistic killer. The body is identified an Amherst college student who is the daughter of a wealthy Boston businessman, making it top priority for the department. Garrett and Landauer now have their Lieutenant and the assistant DA on their backs, pressuring them to solve the case. Complicating matters is that this Assistant DA is also Garrett’s girlfriend, Carolyn.
All the evidence points to another student, Jason Moncrief, a singer in a gothic metal band who’s been acting strange and delving into the occult. When traces of the girl’s blood is found on Jason’s clothes, and the same symbols found in his apartment, Landauer and the Assistant DA think the case is a slam dunk. But Garrett is not convinced. Tanith Cabarrus, a practicing witch who owns an occult store in nearby Salem, is brought in as a consultant and is adamant that they have the wrong man. She believes that there are other murders that have taken place on pagan holy days, all leading up to the most important pagan holy day of the year – October 31st, Halloween-Samhain! Garrett’s structured police procedures are soon cast aside as more and more evidence points to something supernatural taking place. Garrett becomes dangerously involved with the witch to the point of risking his badge but he’s determined to find the real killer before he can complete his deadly ceremony.
Sokoloff’s book does what every good book should do … it grabs you right from the opening chapter and doesn’t let go. So precise and detailed is her narrative that you feel like you are on a ride-along with these two detectives as they go through their investigation, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses. You are kept constantly off guard as she skillfully twists the plot one way and then another, leaving you guess as to whether this is a simple murder or if there truly is something other-worldly going on. As Garrett makes the night drive from Boston to Salem, you can almost feel him slipping back in time to the dark colonial period and Salem’s terrifying past.
Garrett’s relationship with Carolyn is strained because the two come from different worlds. Carolyn is her element in Boston society while Garrett is blue collar and beer, creating an interesting dynamic. He is clearly out of place in high society and knows it, further pushing him towards a dangerous relationship with Tanish. Mystery, crime-thriller, and supernatural horror all meld together in one heck of a page-turner! Grade A
Sherlock Holmes: The Impossible Cases – Book Review
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Sherlock Holmes: The Impossible Cases
Daniel McGachey
Dark Regions Press
Trade Paper, 273 pages, $18.95
Review by Sheila Merritt
Sherlock Holmes: Say the name and be transported to Victorian England. There are frightening footsteps in the London fog; a gigantic hound on the Moors; a vampire in Sussex. All elementary for a detective who prides himself on rational explanations. But what of the covert cases that challenge reason? The ones defying logic, that Dr. Watson chronicled and hid. Daniel McGachey reveals these suppressed stories in Sherlock Holmes: The Impossible Cases. He relates the fantastic findings with flourish and fondness; transcribing Watson’s recordings in a manner that would please the good doctor.
“The Adventure of the Unknown Worm” unearths a repulsive creature that parasitically possesses; tapering its host horrifically. This is the first case discussed in the volume, and harbors connections to the last: “The Adventure of the Pallid Mask.” In it, a play’s the thing which creates havoc. A planned theatrical production of The King in Yellow yields mental aberrations; or perhaps malignant apparitions. The manuscript of the play is of profound interest to many; there is potential power in its pages. McGachey’s placement: His employing the two experiences as book ends, is brilliant. The pairing sets the tone of the tome: Supernatural solutions to the mysteries are suggested, but not aggressively advanced. The remembrances hint at the impenetrable while celebrating the cerebral consulting detective. To quote Dr. Watson: “For even in such dark and deadly waters as we were frequently plunged, where light, truth and sanity seemed to be in such short supply, Sherlock Holmes was capable of grasping that one strand of logical reasoning that anchored us to the world in which we trust – in most cases, at least. For sometimes in our pursuit of the truth, it was not always so easy to eliminate the impossible.”
The remaining arcane episodes compiled in the book are: “The Adventure of the Voice in the Smoke,” an enigma from beyond the grave, and “The Adventure of the Red Barrow Horror” which concerns a disturbed (and disturbing) ancient burial place. These are fine recountings of extraordinary occurrences.
Daniel McGachey deserves praise for honoring Holmes and respecting Watson’s writing. In Sherlock Holmes: The Impossible Cases, he enables the reader to be privy to a fascinating and entertaining archive. There have been other speculations about Holmes’ encounters with the occult; but in this volume, the voice of Watson loudly and clearly sets the record straight.
