The Amazing Mr. Howard
Kenneth W. Harmon
JournalStone
February 20, 2015
Reviewed by Tim Potter
First time novelist Kenneth W. Harmon has scored a huge victory with his new book The Amazing Mr. Howard. It is a new and intelligent on take on horror genre standards of vampires and serial-killers and approaches the ideas in dynamic and satisfying ways. The main characters are extremely real and complex and turn traditional ideas about heroes and villains on their heads. The plot is razor-sharp and never stops driving forward towards a perfect conclusion.
Mr. Howard is a three-dimensional character with extraordinary attributes: he’s a professor of history and mythology, he helps the police search for missing people using what he calls “visions” of a psychic nature, he’s 400 years old and he’s a vampire. Despite all of these characteristics he still comes across as a real, living and breathing person. State Investigator Willard is working on the case of a missing person when Mr. Howard is brought it to consult, a situation he is not happy with. Willard is a pragmatist and has no tolerance for psychics, all of whom he dismisses as frauds. Willard is also a not-so-happy family man who resents his family and hides in his job and the world of online kink.
These two characters are presented in a fascinating juxtaposition of the traditional roles of protagonist and antagonist. Willard the logical cop is, not surprisingly, the protagonist of the story, using his cool head and detective’s instincts to attempt to bring a criminal to justice. Mr. Howard is the antagonist, his actions creating conflict and powering the bulk of the narrative. The great twist here is that Mr. Howard is, by most standards, the good guy in the story and Willard is the bad guy. The novel has to be read to see exactly how this plays out.
The other major player in the story is Detective Killgood, homicide detective and personal friend to Mr. Howard. Killgood’s belief in the efficacy of Mr. Howard’s help and his belief in his general goodness provides an interesting foil to Willard, who believes Mr. Howard is hiding something terrible. Killgood’s perspective is much the same as the reader’s, bouncing back and forth as the story goes on and more of the truth is learned. The other characters are interesting but generally transient, only serving to accent the main characters and their story arcs.
As the plot develops, Mr. Howard and Willard get to know each other better, becoming more and more fervent in their beliefs about their opposite number. What Mr. Howard really knows about the missing persons he helps the authorities locate becomes the main plot thread, supported by Willard’s quest for the truth about the disappearances.
The Amazing Mr. Howard is very well plotted and there is an impressive attention to the fine details of the story and the subtle characterizations of the main players. There are no rehashed horror cliches about serial-killers and vampires here, as the author manages the tough task of acknowledging the tradition associated with these ideas while presenting them in entirely by his own rules. Kenneth W. Harmon has delivered a novel that achieves success on all levels.
Disclaimer: A review copy was provided by our site’s owner
