Leisure Books / June 2009
Reviewed by: Martel Sardina

One of the most frequently asked questions a writer gets is “Where do you get your ideas?” In the Foreword to Cover, Ketchum answers that question as it applies to this book. The short answer is from a segment on the HBO documentary series, America Undercover. Ketchum saw an interview with a Vietnam Vet who lived out in the woods because the horrors of war made it unsafe for him to be around other people. The Vet is married and his wife has stayed with him despite the risk to her own life because she is certain that if she leaves he will die out there. The wife’s words haunted Ketchum, dredging up old feelings about the war and new ones about what it would be like to try and live a life without love.

In Cover, Ketchum introduces us to Lee Moravian, a Vietnam Vet who lives out in the woods with his wife, Alma, their son, Lee Jr. and faithful dog, Pavlov. While Lee generally refers to Alma by name, Ketchum shows the reader that Lee disassociates from his son and his loyal companion, by calling them simply, “the dog” and “the boy.” Lee earns a living by growing and selling marijuana to McCann, a fellow Vet that he’s known since their days in basic training.

McCann warns Lee that a thief is on the loose. Someone has been snooping around the forest and stealing pot plants from one of their other compadres. The thief hasn’t hit Lee’s stash, but the McCann’s warning has put Lee on guard. A new wave of paranoia is about to set in.

Meanwhile, Kelsey is man many would envy. He has money, good looks and two women who love him. This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if Kelsey were single. And while his wife of nearly twenty years, Caroline, is well aware of his relationship with Michelle, the general public might not be as understanding. Kelsey is a writer. Michelle is a model. If the press gets wind that the two are involved, it could be bad for both of them career-wise. Their “cover” will be blown especially if anyone learns that Michelle is pregnant.

Kelsey decides to take the girls and a few other friends out for a weekend camping trip. All is going well until the group discovers Lee’s stash while hiking. They are unaware that Lee is watching. Lee assesses the group and determines that they are a threat to his livelihood. He remembers his days in Vietnam and how even the seemingly innocent could not be trusted. It’s time for Lee to turn hunter. Kelsey and company are his prey.

Lee’s descent into madness is filled with flashbacks of his Vietnam experience. While the scenes are brutal, Ketchum is able to show readers how Lee has been shaped by the war. Readers can’t help feeling empathy for Lee. Ketchum doesn’t excuse Lee’s behavior (then or now) but makes him honestly face what kind of man he’s become.

Ketchum went to great lengths make Lee authentic, giving readers an in-depth look at the mental degradation many Vets suffered upon their return to civilian life. And as far as the question of whether or not it’s possible to live a life without love is concerned (a theme that comes up from time to time in his works) Ketchum proves once again that it is not.

Purchase Cover by Jack Ketchum.

Creative Guy Publishing / June 2009
Reviewed by: Martel Sardina

If “true crime” poetry wasn’t a genre before, it is now. And Christopher Conlon may well be its master. In 2007, I had the pleasure of reading Conlon’s Mary Falls: Requiem for Mrs. Surratt, a poetry collection based on the co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Part of the appeal of reading that collection was the opportunity to learn about a lesser-known figure in American history.

Now, Conlon presents readers with the opportunity to learn about the life of Charles Starkweather, a notorious spree killer who was executed in 1959. Starkweather was responsible for the murders of eleven victims and the corruption of Caril Ann Fugate, his underage girlfriend and partner in crime.

Conlon’s collection is hard to read due to the visceral response it is intended to cause. The images presented are not for the faint of heart. Sometimes Conlon describes the acts committed, but it is not an attempt to be sensational or gratuitous. Each poem is savage and brutal in its own way. “Sputnik” and “Slow Learner” are heartbreaking illustrations of a young girl’s (Fugate) struggle to understand why she is no longer worthy of her mother’s love. “First Sight” and “Loving Charlie” show a tender side of the couple. The juxtaposition of tender moments and intense violence is surprising in some ways. Though murder can be a crime of passion, it is still hard to believe that people who are capable of committing violent acts are also still able to love and be loved.

Readers who have the fortitude to withstand moments of longing, heartbreak, anger and despair will come away from the experience appreciating Conlon’s effort to delve deep and examine the relationship between Starkweather and Fugate, and the mental digression that led to these horrendous crimes.

Purchase Starkweather Dreams by Christopher Conlon.

Pinnacle / June 2009
Reviewed by: Martel Sardina

Alex Chapa’s reporting career took off the day that Annie Sykes, a missing ten-year-old girl, escaped from her captor, Kenny Lee Grubb. The girl led police back to his home where they made a shocking discovery. Grubb wasn’t your run of the mill crook. He turned out to be one of the most prolific serial killers the world had ever seen.

Nearly twenty years later, Grubb is less than a week away from being executed for his crimes. Chapa is assigned to do a death row interview. Since he broke the story, it only seemed fitting to give him the opportunity to follow the story full circle and perhaps finally gain closure on the Sykes case.

Grubb has other plans for Chapa where this interview is concerned:

“If I tell you the truth, will you print it?”

“We always print the truth,” Chapa said picking up the only pen that was still sitting on the table.”

“The hell you do. If you did, all of those sleepwalkers out there would take up arms and fortify their homes.”

“Would they?”

“You bet they would. Because the truth is, my work continues. Right now, just beyond these walls.”

Grubb reveals that another killer is on the loose. Someone is out there paying tribute, recreating Grubb’s greatest hits. Before Grubb dies, his disciple will deliver the greatest gift of all—the death of the girl who got away, Annie Sykes, the one Grubb called “Red.”

Once Chapa verifies Grubb’s claims, he must find Annie and prevent Grubb’s accomplice from carrying out his plan. It won’t be easy. Cops and reporters don’t always see stories from the same angle. Over the years, Chapa’s relationship with local law enforcement has become strained. While he does have one good friend on the force, Chapa is in danger of ruining that friendship by withholding evidence in order to keep Grubb’s bombshell from being scooped by a rival reporter. On top of everything else, Chapa’s been warned that if the piece on Grubb isn’t top notch, it may be his last.

Killing Red is Henry Perez’s debut novel. It stands out from similar novels in the genre for a couple of reasons. First, Alex Chapa is authentic. Perez took great care in giving readers a character with real feelings. Chapa regrets not having a better relationship with his own daughter. He knows that he’s sacrificed family for the sake of his career whether he intended to or not. Saving Annie isn’t just about stopping a crime from happening; it’s about Chapa redeeming himself for failing as a father. Second, Chapa’s insights on the newspaper industry, what a reporter’s job entails, and the future of a seemingly dying medium can be traced back to Perez’s own experiences as a journalist. Chapa has a passion for the news that wouldn’t be as pronounced if he’d been written by someone who didn’t have Perez’s background.

Many times, authors choose to alternate between the cop and the serial killer in this sub genre. Having a reporter as the main POV character gives readers a fresh perspective on a plot that some would argue is overused. Much of this reviewer’s enjoyment came from Chapa’s reactions to the events as they happened. The more you read a particular genre, the harder it is to be surprised. Perez scores points for writing a fast-paced, exciting story, with a couple of bonus points for the red herrings.

If you enjoy Killing Red, consider checking out Floaters, a novella in which Perez and Chapa team up with J.A. Konrath and his series character, Lt. Jack Daniels, to figure out why dead bodies keep turning up in the Chicago River. Floaters is currently available in the print anthology Missing: A Mysterious Gathering of Tales, edited by Amy Alessio (Echelon Press) or as a standalone novella for the Amazon Kindle.

Purchase Killing Red by Henry Perez.

Dark Regions Press / August 2008
Reviewed by: Rich Ristow

No ideas but in things, William Carlos Williams once famously wrote in his long collage poem Patterson. Over the years, the idea has morphed into the creative writing workshop mantra of Show, don’t tell. Still, it’s important to consider Williams, even all these decades after his passing. For all the possibilities of lyric poetry, things are more interesting than emotions. Without things, a poem just becomes a raw bundle of feeling, and who finds that interesting, other than the novice who scribbled it? It’s like the failure of a would-be performance /slam poet, in Huntington, West Virginia (who shall remain nameless), who had nothing really interesting to say, so he just pranced around a stage shouting, Fuck you, you fucking fuck! His sloppy rhyme on uck sounds didn’t help his case either. It should be an eternal rule of poetry: never rhyme “fucking fuck” with “flat billed duck.” True, one can’t have a lyric poetry devoid of emotion, but it’s the things that ground the reader and give emotion context. This is something that largely transcends most poetic genres. Classical, new formalist, contemporary free-verse – most good poetry is grounded in something tactile. How it’s grounded leads to the various content descriptions out there, like speculative poetry.

That leads to something else, inevitably. Speculative poetry is not a formal genre, just like “feminist poetry” and “African American poetry” are not formal genres. Those words are mere content labels, and not a description of aesthetic nuts and bolts. Marilynn Hacker’s metrics is just as feminist as Adrienne Rich’s free verse. Claude McKay was just as African-American as Langston Hughes or Reginald Shepard – the three, in terms of prosody, almost live on different planets. Which brings me, rather nicely, back to speculative poetry. One could play the game of comparison, but for the sake of ease, it just might be easier to point to Bruce Boston’s The Nightmare Collection.

The book absolutely contains speculative content, and while there are certain constructive qualities that thread their way through the collection, there’s no über Bruce Boston poem. He sometimes writes in rhyme, and other times in free verse or poetic prose. This isn’t a case of a writerly multiple personality disorder. One gets the sense that Boston approaches issues of form the way a mechanic or carpenter approaches their tool kit. Instead of sticking to one approach, Boston merely uses what works for him.

Sometimes, Boston writes like an early Williams, long before the collage poetics of Patterson. Poems like “Dark Gourmet,” “Bone People,” and “White Whale” narrowly stretch down the page with short lines and stanza breaks making ample use of the white space around. Each concrete line spells out a thought or image building to the end, where everything locks together nicely. In other places, Boston is more comfortable with prose, like in “Interrogation at City Gate,” “Futurity Wears The Head,” and “Cold Letter to the Children.” These poems benefit from the longer, more prosaic line, and had Boston used stripped-down lineation, they wouldn’t work.

There are also works that employ rhyme in The Nightmare Collection, but all this talk of form is more a mere exploration of Boston’s uses of different organizational principles. A speculative nature is consistent throughout. Most obviously, it comes across in a series of variations that open with “If _______ / where the world.” For example:

                                       If cockroach people
were the world
our population would
multiply unchecked,

Also:

                                       If lice people
were the world
we would cultivate
vast fields of flesh,

There are many others within the collection that start with conjecture and then moves on to envision the resulting implications. Boston speculates on, among others crow people, cat people, werewolves, and, as shown above, cockroach and lice people. The spirit of speculation carries one, but not every poem within The Nightmare Collection fits the opening formula of the mentioned variations.

There’s work here that reads like comes straight from the bizarro camp. (Honestly, “vast fields of flesh” struck me, personally, as a happy coincidence, as I’ve recently been reading Carlton Mellick III’s Teeth and Tongue Landscape) “Surreal Births” details a woman giving birth to a dog, and they afterbirth comes in the form puppy chow. There’s also Boston’s sense of humor, like in “Avocado Horror” which starts off praising the green fruit, but then ends up using it as a garnish for cannibalism.

Certain elements of craft do transcend the issue of shape and assist the sense of speculation. It doesn't matter whether Boston rhymes, alliterates in free verse, or employs the poetic sentence. There's a strong sense of clarity within The Nightmare Collection. Again, this comes back to Williams famous little dictum. The collection bristles with things. Vivid imagery abounds, which is fundamentally needed. Speculation is an abstract action. Without grounding the reader, in, say, Boston's “Surreal Office” where the arm rests are arms and the sofa is a lap, the poetry would just be a loose bundle of ideas, and that would be boring – as boring as a collection where the writer was more concerned with communicating their feelings than speaking a language of evocative imagery. Boston does what any successful speculative poet should do. He puts the reader in weird, strange, landscapes; he gives a visual context for his ideas. In the end, it makes for a wild ride.

Purchase The Nightmare Collection by Bruce Boston.

Grand Central Publishing / May 2009
Reviewed by: Martel Sardina

As horror fans, we should all know by know that offering a ride to or accepting a ride from a stranger is never a good idea. Stories fall into to two categories: the hitchhiking psychopath who takes advantage of an unsuspecting Good Samaritan or the naive hitchhiker who accepts a ride from a nefarious stranger. But what if the hitchhiking psychopath accepted a ride from a nefarious stranger? In the novella Serial, Konrath and Crouch combine the best of both worlds to give readers a story they won’t soon forget.

Donaldson is a serial killer who is starting to wonder if pursuing hitchhikers as victims is even worth the trouble anymore. Finding potential victims is getting tougher all the time. Delayed gratification takes the fun out of the game. But maybe his luck is improving. Shortly after disposing of his latest victim, Donaldson sees Lucy, a pretty young thing waving her up turned thumb in his direction. Should he give her a lift? Or does he know enough to realize this opportunity is too good to be true?

Konrath and Crouch collaborated on Serial in part to give readers a sampler of their respective works. Konrath writes the Lt. Jack Daniels mystery series and recently released his first horror novel, Afraid, under the pen name Jack Kilborn. Crouch’s first two novels feature Andy Thomas, a suspense writer who gets pulled into a nightmarish world worse than the ones he writes about. His forthcoming novel, Abandon, is about a mining town in the Colorado mountains that vanishes in 1893.

An interview with the authors and excerpts from Afraid and Abandon are included in this free e-book (for Kindle or Kindle for iPhone).

Download Serial by J.A. Konrath and Blake Crouch.

St. Martin’s Press / May 2009
Reviewed by: Vince A. Liaguno

Poltergeists and parapsychology take center stage in Alexandra Sokoloff’s third novel, The Unseen. Caution: Falling rocks and ghostly eroticism ahead.

Dr. Laurel MacDonald, a young psychology professor on the run from heartbreak and betrayal, takes a teaching post at Duke University. For the California transplant, Durham, North Carolina is a bit of a culture shock – from the old southern customs and laid back ways of the people to the colorful change of seasons and reconnection with distant relatives. With the “publish or perish” aspect of her new university gig looming, MacDonald stumbles upon the newly released files from the world-famous Rhine parapsychology experiments – during which Dr. Rhine and his researchers scientifically proved the existence of ESP - and reluctantly teams up with a handsome colleague to replicate a poltergeist investigation from 1965. Unbeknownst to MacDonald and company – which includes Dr. Brendan Cody and two gifted students – the 1965 haunted house investigation ended with members of the original research team either dead or insane. Before you can say The Legend of Hell House, the mirrors are shattering, the sexual tension is crackling, and rocks are falling from the sky in this fast-paced, well-executed supernatural thriller.

The Unseen builds upon the best elements of Sokoloff’s two previous novels – 2006’s The Harrowing and last year’s The Price – to create a hybrid third effort. Like The Harrowing, we’re back in a college setting – this time Duke University – and seemingly dealing with angry spirits. But, like in The Price, Sokoloff casts doubts on whether the spooky doings at hand are paranormal or just normal – or perhaps a combination of the two:

The knocking started again. This time it was downstairs, muffled…curiously, the sound seemed the exact same distance away. Slow, steady thumps.

Listening to it, all of Laurel’s suspicions about a human source fled her. She could feel in her marrow – this was other. It was mind-shattering, soul-shattering. Her whole body was in revolt against the essential wrongness of it, the irrationality, the impossibility. She could feel the same reaction in the other three; they all stood still and poised in disbelief, in outrage, in awe.

It’s in her ability to keep readers straddling this literary tightrope that Sokoloff achieves her greatest level of success in creating genuine supernatural suspense.

Throughout The Unseen, Sokoloff’s screenwriting background is evident – to mostly positive effect. The novel chugs along like a well-edited hour and a half film, with perfectly placed peaks and valleys in the action and dialogue that’s script-ready. At times, the novel feels so much like a Hollywood screenplay that one half expects to see stage directions; fortunately, Sokoloff knows a thing or two about balance and such feelings of cinematic composition are fleeting. Literary prowess adequately dismisses Hollywood sensibility, for example, whenever Sokoloff juxtaposes the colorless, fast-paced Californian landscape against the drawling, textured old money world of North Carolina. Potential versus privilege.

The characters are casting agent friendly (one can almost see Kate Hudson or Melissa George stepping in to play MacDonald, Ryan Reynolds or Jake Gllyenhaal in the Cody role) with likeability quotients kept high – even the unlikable characters possess nothing more than a few minor personality flaws. Unlike previous efforts, it’s her supporting players that shine here. Tyler Mountford, one of the two Duke students selected to tag along on the investigation, practically oozes sexuality and southern charm right off the pages with his “Cheshire cat smile” and the “slouch in his hips,” while Katrina DeVore (who jumps off the page as a young Christina Ricci) is impeccably rendered in all her southern Gothic girl-meets-privilege moodiness.

With The Unseen, Sokoloff establishes herself as a leader among the horror-thriller hybrid crowd. She knows just when to chill, and just when to thrill. It’s the perfect temperature for a genre climate in which the horror novel is lukewarm at best and the thriller is hot – the ideal conditions to create a perfect storm of sales and suspense.

Purchase The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff.

Shaye Areheart Books / May 2009
Reviewed by: Martel Sardina

The cover of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel Sharp Objects piqued my interest when I saw it on the shelf at my local library. While I don’t usually judge a book by its cover, the image of a razor blade on a black background reminded me of one of my favorite metal albums, Judas Priest’s British Steel — which in and of itself warranted a quick glance at the dust jacket copy and blurbs. The premise interested me enough to give Flynn a try.

To say that I liked her debut would be an understatement. I raved about it then and have been waiting (im)patiently for Ms. Flynn to hurry up and put out something new. After nearly three years, Dark Places is finally here. The question is: was it worth the wait?

When Flynn introduces Libby Day, the reader is immediately sympathetic toward her. When Libby was seven, her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered. Libby witnessed the murders and managed to escape into the harsh January night, losing a couple of toes in the process.

Libby is in her thirties now, still living in the shadow of her past. She’s depressed, out of work, and just learned that her trust fund has run out. She’s so caught up in the life that was taken from her, that she can barely function is the life that she has. She doesn’t have many family members to turn to for help. Her father, Runner, is a deadbeat. Her Aunt Diane isn’t speaking to her. And her only other relative – her brother Ben – has been in jail since that fateful night. Libby’s eyewitness testimony put him there.

When Libby receives a letter requesting a public speaking engagement, she agrees thinking it will be a way to make some quick cash. Lyle, the event’s organizer, assures Libby that it will be a pleasant evening and all she’ll have to do is answer a few questions from a group of people who have spent the last twenty odd years following her case. Libby expects to be speaking to a group of sympathizers and is shocked when audience members have the audacity to suggest that her brother is innocent. They claim to have proof, telling Libby that the prosecution tricked her into identifying Ben as the murderer. Trouble is, Libby was there that night. They weren’t.

Libby leaves the event angry. Lyle apologizes and begs her to look at the group’s files. To merely consider the possibility that she was wrong. Libby isn’t interested in revisiting the details of that horrible night until she learns that members of Lyle’s group are willing to pay her handsomely to scare up old ghosts.

At first, Libby is motivated by greed. But as she starts digging deeper, talking to people from her past, the details aren’t fitting together quite as nicely as they did when she was seven. She begins to doubt Ben’s guilt and wants to know what really happened that night.

What follows is the unraveling of great mystery. Flynn keeps the reader turning pages by alternating viewpoint characters and timelines. While most of the narrative is focused on Libby in the present, Flynn also gives readers glimpses into the past, relaying the events leading up to the murders from Ben’s (as a teenager) and their now-deceased mother’s point of view.

Flynn’s writing is brutal. Some criticize her for writing about unlikable people. I won’t take her to task for that. As a reader and a reviewer, I want characters that are believable. I don’t have to like them as people. But I do have to believe in them, believe in the motivations for their actions. Flynn succeeds on both counts.

If nothing else, Dark Places certainly lives up to its name.

Purchase Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.