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Book Review: The Final Reconciliation by Todd Keisling

 


The Final Reconciliation by Todd Keisling

Crystal Lake Publishing, 2017

ASIN: B01N385I94

Available: Kindle edition, Audible

After thirty long years of silence, Aidan Cross, physically and mentally scarred, is finally granting an interview. He wants to open up about his time with his heavy metal band, The Yellow Kings. Aidan reveals an impossible account of music, the occult, and death with his story about The Yellow Kings’ unreleased album, “The Final Reconciliation”, which led to their live concert resulting in a bloodbath.

After The Yellow Kings sign a record deal and embark on a successful tour, they meet Carmilla Bierce after an intense concert in Texas, and ask her to join them. The lead singer, Johnny, becomes increasingly entranced with this new addition to their tour bus. She convinces them to take her along to Dim Carcosa, her pet name for Los Angeles. Carmilla quickly takes control: her influence over the band comes swift and heavy. Aidan suspects something is wrong, but when he tries to communicate his worry to his friends, they either don’t listen or she is in the way.

The way the new album is being recorded is troubling to Aidan. Carmilla does not permit the band to play more than a small selection of songs at a time, and the recording studio has been set up in a ritualistic way by  Carmilla herself. Then dreams come, of otherworldly robed creatures with their faces hidden behind masks– visions of true Carcosa, all with the same message: “Take off your mask.” Carmilla also orchestrates The Yellow Kings’ final reconciliation, the concert to end all concerts, at least for The Yellow Kings and their fans. Masks for everyone, ritual robes and medallions for The Yellow Kings, and patterns for the band to follow, musically and physically, all add up to a bloody evening.

There is much to like about this novella, especially if you are a fan of horror and metal. The writing keeps a fast pace and engages the reader at every twist and turn. The characters are memorable, particularly Aidan and Camilla. Aidan is clearly struggling with past events, and wants to finally tell his story. When he discovers the reason behind the journalist wanting the interview, Aidan’s reaction is what is to be expected given the way he told his story. I remain conflicted about Carmilla. There is a line in the novella comparing her to Yoko Ono or Courtney Love, which made me wholly suspicious not of her, but of Aidan. Women are often blamed solely for the downfall of something, like a musical group, without blame being leveled at their male counterparts. For this comparison to be assigned to Carmilla immediately made me question Aidan’s motivations. Also, since we are only hearing Aidan’s side of the story, how much of his story is reliable? Several questions remain, but one thing is clear. Nothing is as it seems in the world of Carcosa. Recommended.

Contains: brief sex, brief body horror, some gore, lots of reference to amazing metal bands (I’m looking at you, Mastodon).

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on May 27, 2017 by , Reply

Musings: The Stranger Inside by Jennifer Jaynes

The Stranger Inside by Jennifer Jaynes
Thomas & Mercer, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1477817919
Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, Audible, Audio CD

Well, it’s happened. The Monster Kid, soon to be 12 years old, picked up, secretly read, and was completely engrossed in his first adult horror novel (why he thought he needed to hide this from me is beyond my understanding, but maybe keeping it underground is part of the allure). Technically, it’s the second one he’s read, but he was unimpressed by I Am Legend (I think he didn’t actually understand what was happening, which I am grateful for). And I suppose purists would say it’s more of a mystery thriller than a horror novel, but it was sent to me for review, and it has some pretty terrifying moments. The Monster Kid is a re-reader; once he finds a book he’s really fascinated by, he reads it over and over. I note that he has been sneaking it to school in his backpack, so obviously this is one of those books.

A Stranger Inside introduces us to the Christie family: widowed mystery writer Diane; her adopted 15 year old son, Josh; and her college-aged daughter, Alexa, who struggles with anger at her mother, grief, depression, and addiction. Diane and Josh have just moved to the college town where Alexa attends school, and Diane is struggling to adapt to small-town life and changing family dynamics. She’s also finally trying to move beyond her grief and anger at her husband’s suicide, and starting up a new relationship. Add to this mix the sudden murders of girls at Alexa’s school, and you have a recipe for disaster.  What else would you expect in a town named Fog Harbor?

Jaynes’ slow-building characterization of the men in this story is what makes it creepy to me (obviously, this is not what appeals to my kid). Every single one of them gives off that “wrong” feeling, which only escalates as the events of the story, and the murders, continue. It is amazing to me is that Diane, a mystery writer, takes forever to pick any of this up. There’s Lance, a volunteer at the suicide hotline where Diane volunteers; Wayne, the grocery store manager who invades personal boundaries; Rick, her “perfect guy”, a former sniper who suffers from PTSD and has a houseful of guns. Even Alexa, who spends a good chunk of time in a drug-and-alcohol induced stupor, has more of a clue than her mom does.

While he picked up on the total lack of likability of any of the men in the book, I’m pretty sure the Monster Kid missed out on most of this, for obvious reasons. This is a kid who fast forwards through movies to get to the action scenes and giant explosions. This book is a really fast read, and if he did something similar, in skipping the character-building parts, that could explain why he sped through it in an evening.  For him, it was the suspense, ratcheted up in part from not being able to tell which person in the book was the killer, the pacing, and the interspersed scenes of the killings, from the killer’s point of view. These aren’t graphically gory, but there’s definitely a focus on the stalker’s thrill at the chase that could leave your heart pounding.  The killer was a character that completely surprised the Monster Kid, although based on his short, non-spoilery summary, I guessed it pretty quickly. The final scenes of the book are not ones I would have ever guessed, though.

This is an adult book, and there are a few sexual situations, although most of that is off-screen (can I say off-screen when writing about a book?). His primary pickup from this was the phrase “The room smelled like sex and french fries”, with the focus on the french fries. There’s also a date rape, which we see from Alexa’s point of view, which is pretty muddled since she’s drugged.

It’s kind of astonishing to me that, with all the horror novels in this house that he has hidden from view because of the covers or that even are just floating around, the Monster Kid picked this one, and is enthralled with it. It’s a sign that he’s growing older, I guess, and if he had to choose a book to start with, this wasn’t a bad one. In fact, the most disturbing part to me is the teenage boy and his role in the story, and maybe that’s because it hits so close to home. If he stays with books that have this level of violence and sex, it’ll be a relief. But I’ve been hearing a lot of mutterings about Stephen King…

 

 

Posted on May 19, 2017 by , Reply

Book Review: Little Heaven by Nick Cutter

Little Heaven by Nick Cutter
Gallery Books, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1501104213
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, Audible

Nick Cutter is one of the hottest names in horror fiction, and for good reason. I have read all four of his books now, and I the praise for each was certainly warranted. I enjoyed The Deep and The Acolyte but his debut novel, The Troop, is outstanding. At a time when major publishers were shy about hardcover horror, this wicked intense, character-rich, body horror novel was a major hit. It worked in part because, despite a modern setting, it felt retro in all the right ways, like a a golden age of horror paperback classic. People rightly compared to it to classic Stephen King. I thought it was an effective and disturbing horror novel that made the best of a lean prose style.

Little Heaven, Cutter’s fourth book, is a masterpiece of horror fiction, and a tribute to the 1980s, even more so than The Troop did. As good as his last two books were, they missed the retro feel that made The Troop special.  Although some readers have compared Little Heaven to classic King, it’s more influenced by the work of Clive Barker and Robert McCammon. The setting and characters suggest that Cutter was also influenced by Cormac McCarthy, and the structure and dialogue are reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino. Take all this narrative chemistry, and it adds up to a novel that feels like others, but is actually like nothing I have read before (it’s also nice to see that he has escaped the Bentley Little title disease– finally, a novel that is not The ___ Whatever “.)

Little Heaven is the story of four trained killers given the mission to rescue a young boy whose father has taken him to a compound called Little Heaven, in the New Mexico desert. Cutter clearly has fashioned the cult after real-life cults. We soon learn that the killers are not normal humans. The supernatural elements have a surreal quality that brings to mind early Clive Barker. Monsters, such as the Long Walker, were disturbing in how unnatural they were, yet described so well you can see them in your mind. It’s nothing short of creepy.  Cutter creates vivid landscapes, and the horrors pop off the page, causing several cringeworthy moments of supernatural horror.

The narrative switches back and forth from the mid-60s to the 80s, and the structure unrolls the story in an unconventional but very effective manner. We know the four mercenaries survived something which changed them, and they are haunted by what they have seen. As in Robert McCammon’s Gone South, the characters are both scary and hilarious at times. The prose itself is excellent. This novel delivers exactly the feeling of the classics, and causes me to turn the pages, and that’s all I’m asking for. I think this is the best Cutter book to date, and the best horror novel in years. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by David Agranoff

Here’s an audio review David did of Little Heaven with fellow author Anthony Trevino.

 


Posted on May 5, 2017 by , Reply
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