Prodigal Blues

After he finds himself stranded at a truck stop in Missouri, Mark Sieber gets one of the biggest shocks of his life when he recognizes the face of a missing child who winds up sitting his booth, waiting for him. After the media frenzy begins, Mark sneaks away to his hotel room to call his wife and let her know what's going on. There he is taken hostage by the same people who released the little girl. But his abductors are children themselves and have their own plans for him.

Gary A. Braunbeck paints a visceral tale of child kidnapping and abuse that sticks in your head for days after. While the basic plot of the story is questionable (Why did the kids need Mark to "return" them to their homes?), its execution is extremely well done.

Braunbeck shows to what depths a professional child slaver, known as "Grendel", will go to in order to ply his trade and establish dominance over his victims. The scenes describing the horrors perpetrated against the kids turns your stomach and twists your heartstrings. However, the kids turn out to be stronger than their abuser, and their unification allows them to triumph and gain their ultimate revenge.

Despite the somewhat contrived plot set-up, this book is extremely well-written and is highly recommended for anyone interested in real-world horror.

Available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Title: Prodigal Blues
Author: Gary A. Braunbeck
Year: 2006
Pages: 304

Dark Harvest

It's Halloween 1963 in Small Town, U.S.A., and the local teenage boys are getting ready for the annual hunt for the October Boy, a pumpkin-headed being that runs the gauntlet each Halloween. The boy who brings him down before he makes it to the local church wins a ticket out of town and freedom from the ennui of small-town, no-ambition life. Pete McCormack is extremely determined this year, but a chance encounter with a female tomboy reveals the horrifying truth about the town tradition and turns his expectations upside-down.

Dark Harvest, despite being a short book, spins an entertaining yarn that anyone who grew up in a small town can relate to (well, except for the rampaging pumpkin-boy). Having grown up in a tiny little burg, I can sympathize with an overwhelming urge to get away from the tired, repetitive lifestyle. Fortunately, my town wasn't as poverty-stricken as this one seemed to be.

The plot itself is fairly straightforward and doesn't contain much in the way of surprises. The reader would probably do him- or herself a favor by going into this book expecting a horror-themed action story rather than spine-chilling prose of terror. That being said, the action scenes are extremely well done. Partridge does an excellent job of balancing the descriptions with the activity, giving you just enough to see what's happening without overwhelming you with the details.

Because it's a short book and the action flows quickly, someone should be able to read this in just a few sittings. While it may not have the character richness of a 400-page epic, it's not necessary to tell this particular story. I'd recommend this for both the serious and the casual reader.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: Dark Harvest
Author: Norman Partridge
Year: 2006
Pages: 169

The Devil You Know

Felix Castor is an exorcist who's fallen into some hard times after an attempt to remedy a friend's possession went horribly wrong. Out of the blue comes a simple ghost removal, which seems fairly simple. However, while attempting to get a feel for the ghost's nature, he runs afoul of a crooked pimp, a lycanthrope with an attitude, and an elder succubus who's been summoned just to kill him. Felix is forced to use his wits to not only bring peace to the mute ghost, but to save his own skin in the process.

Up until this novel, I was only familiar with Mike Carey's comic book work, primarily Lucifer and The Unwritten (both excellent titles, by the way). This is the first prose novel of his I've read, and coincidentally the first novel in the Felix Castor series.

While Felix comes off a bit like John Constantine (Carey also wrote some issues of Hellblazer), the uniqueness of Castor's universe allows you to look past a lot of the familiar occult detective tropes. Carey comes up with creative origins of the various supernatural types, some of which are refreshing takes on otherwise tired concepts. Combine that with some snappy dialog and excellent pacing, and you end up with a book that's an absolute blast to read.

If you're looking for something both fun and new, this is definitely a book to check out. Highly recommended.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: The Devil You Know
Author: Mike Carey
Year: 2006
Pages: 501

DEAD(ish)

I loved B&N's description of the book:

Linda's had a bad day. First her boyfriend killed her. Then she woke up, still on this boring plane of existence, and with an odd obsession about her missing body.

It turns out Linda can't cross over until she gets reunited with her body. Because she doesn't know where it is, and her boyfriend Mike isn't telling, Linda starts playing cruel pranks on Mike while hiring a P.I. to track down her missing body.

Told from a rotating first-person point-of-view, the plot takes a few twists and turns, including an improbable love quadrangle(?) between Linda, Mike, and the gay couple next door.

The best part of this book is the mischief Linda commits against Mike. The plot itself takes some completely improbable turns, and the ending is completely forgettable. In addition, the dialog is entirely too expletive-laden and distracts from the message being conveyed.

If you've got a NOOK or the NOOK software, you can get this book for free from the Barnes & Noble link above. Amazon is charging only 99¢ for the Kindle version. I don't believe the book exists in hard-copy format. Frankly, that's about what this tale is worth.

Title: DEAD(ish)
Author: Naomi Kramer
Year: 2009
Pages: 100

Bloodfeud: The War of the Fang

Around 1000 A.D., a group of exiled Scotsmen lands on German shores. Deciding they didn't want to travel all the way to uninhabited lands, they find a developing barony and begin raiding the populace. The baron fights back, and each skirmish escalates the level of atrocity committed against the other party. Finally, the two parties draw the wrath of God and both are cursed into becoming creatures of the night. At this point, the fight is taken to an all-new level.

This book is a little slow getting started, taking a lot of time to set up the Scots' presence in Germany and the pre-curse violence. However, once the transformations occur, it turns into a pretty good (although somewhat predictable) vampires vs. werewolves story. The author blurb indicated this is a prequel to a series Fackler has in mind and reads as such.

The speech was a little too modern for the 10th Century, but this may have just been an attempt to keep the book easy to read. However, the characters are fairly well-developed and the personalities of each show through, despite there being a lot of characters for a sub-300-page book.

This is a light, fun read and is worth your time even if it doesn't tread any new ground.

Available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Title: Bloodfeud: The War of the Fang
Author: Jason Fackler
Year: 2010
Pages: 280

The Waking

Four police detectives investigate two seemingly random murders with suspicious scenes. Once they delve into the cases, they realize the murderers may actually be avenging their own deaths. As the night draws on, the police scramble to figure out where the zombies are coming from and how to stop them.

Raven Gregory presents a fresh take on the much-overdone zombie genre. Instead of being mindless, unstoppable brain-eaters, The Waking's zombies are purpose-driven, and die once they've avenged themselves. The crux of the story centers around the source of the resurrections and why all this is happening.

While Drujiniu's pencils aren't spectacular examples of well-done anatomy, I will give him credit for making everyone look different and not recycling faces like a lot of other artists do. The storytelling is above average, only getting hard to follow in some of the action pages. Still, he creates good effects with shadows and conveys the scenes with a good hand. Roberts's colors seem a bit too bright throughout most of the book, but are quite competent.

Still, it's definitely worth reading, especially if you're as tired of zombies as I am.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: The Waking
Author: Raven Gregory
Artists: Vic Drujiniu and Mark Roberts
Year: 2010
Pages: 124

As Fate Would Have It

Michael Louis Calvillo spins a tale of cannibalism and bad relationships, somehow tying the two together into an entertaining yarn.

The story begins with Heather's first date with the city's rising star chef, Montgomery. The date takes a turn for the worse when she finds out Montgomery only thinks of her as a piece of meat — literally. As it turns out, Montgomery and his tenuous girlfriend Liz have eclectic culinary tastes. Things get complicated when Heather's heroin-addicted friend Ashley plays amateur detective and starts following Montgomery around.

While the book ends on a somewhat anticlimactic note, Calvillo shows his talent in creating an excellent character study on destructive relationships amid the absurdity of cannibalism. The true joy of this book is in Calvillo's use of language and the matter-of-fact tone taken by each of the characters. You truly find yourself sucked in, despite the obvious plot holes.

If you liked the TV show Lost more as a character study than the actual story, then you'll enjoy this book.

Available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Title: As Fate Would Have It
Author: Michael Louis Calvillo
Year: 2009
Pages: 289