Horror World Book Reviews
May, 2005

Scarecrow Gods / November Mourns / Pieces of Hate / 361 / Vengeance / Broken Angel /
The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book / Witching Hour Theatre / Flesh Gothic

SCARECROW GODS by Weston Ochse
Review by Jonathan Reitan

Delirium Books, producer of such fine limited edition volumes such as Brian Keene's The Rising and City of the Dead, Brian Knight's Broken Angel, the Deathrealms anthology edited by Stephen Mark Rainey and many other instant sell-out titles, has released their latest, Scarecrow Gods by first time novelist Weston Ochse.

Weston may be recognized from his previous works, the cult classic collections co-authored with David Whitman, Scary Rednecks and Other Inbred Horrors and Appalachian Galapagos, his novella Natural Selections, or as the husband of writer Yvonne Navarro, but it is not until Scarecrow Gods that Ochse has received the proper recognition he deserves.

In Scarecrow Gods, Ochse gives us the tale of Maxom Phinxs, a disfigured Vietnam veteran known locally as the Maggot Man, Simon, an Alexian Brother, Danny, a wise boy with a troubled family, and Billy Bones, once rocket scientist now homeless man who speaks in palindromes and metaphors, as they join forces to fight the evil cult leader John the New Baptist in the southern Arizona desert.

The supernatural or fantastic elements of Scarecrow Gods enters in as Maxom teaches Danny how to meditate and leave his body in order to enter the Land of Inside-Out where they are able to spy on the real world as spirits and posses the bodies of small animals. This trick comes in handy as Danny enters the compound of John the New Baptist where he must save his runaway older sister.

Scarecrow Gods is an intense novel. Intense character-driven plot, intense action spewing off the pages and intense atmosphere (whether it be the Arizona desert, the back roads of Tennessee or a tiny Catholic church in Mexico). Scarecrow Gods is a powerful tale of love, family and personal demons. It's a shame Ochse's first novel will reach such a limited audience because it's obvious this born story teller has a lot to tell. For those that can afford this limited edition, do yourself a favor and do not pass it up.

Available from Delirium Books

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November Mourns by Tom Piccirilli
Reviewed by Mark Sieber

On the surface, the plot of Tom Piccirilli's November Mourns is a simple one: A man is released from stint in prison and returns to his tiny country hometown. His teenage half-sister died under mysterious circumstances while he was in, and he's determined to discover the truth behind it.

Of course, anyone who has read anything by Tom knows that his fiction is anything but simple. November Mourns is an intoxicating story of a severely repressed culture peopled with inbreds, mutations, and a community that is kept solvent by the making and distribution of moonshine. The poorly manufactured liquor has damaged most of the characters to some degree, and the descriptions of their lives are very funny, in a blackly humorous way. His quest for the truth behind his sister's death raises more questions than answers. He is continually warned off the bad road where she was found and to avoid it at all costs as he stumbles along in quixotic fashion.

Those seeking an easy story with a clear cut-motives may be disappointed in November Mourns. It's a complex story, with more than a bit of ambiguity. The entire novel is drenched in spirits. Spirits of the deceased, the mind, and of the distilled variety. The protagonist is haunted by his past and his memories of prison, haunted by the memory of the mother he never really knew and by the oppressive community that he is both repelled by and drawn to.

Tom Piccirilli is a marvelous writer in whatever genre he chooses to take his imagination. It's no surprise that he is a gifted poet, as many of the scenes in November Mourns flow with a stream of conscienceness that reminds me of poetry. He creates a lush, atmospheric, surreal world in which the reader may question the sights, sounds, and actions described. The nature of many of the events kept me guessing throughout the book, and remained in mind long after I turned the final page.

November Mourns is the kind of book that stays with readers, continuing to work itself into their minds and forcing them to rethink their initial interpretation of it. November Mourns is sad, haunting, wistful, lyrical and very, very funny. It's a tough trick, I'd imagine, to make a reader care, think, shiver and then laugh out loud. Tom blends it all together and casts a potent spell upon his audience.

Available from Amazon.com

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PIECES OF HATE by Tim Lebbon
Reviewed by Ron Dickie

Avast ye varlets, take heed! Cap'n Tim Lebbon has crafted another fine tale featurin' his hero Gabriel huntin' that monster Temple. Aye, and this time, there be pirates too!

PIECES OF HATE is Book Two in Lebbon's Assassin Series of novellas from Necessary Evil Press. You don't need to read Book One, DEAD MAN'S HAND, to enjoy PIECES, but in case you haven't, here's all the background info you need: Temple is a time-traveling assassin. He's very good at his job, and he enjoys what he does. Gabriel is hunting Temple throughout time. He hates him with a passion and will stop at nothing to destroy him.

From the wild west of Book One, Tim Lebbon now takes us to the seven seas with Gabriel on board a pirate ship continuing his hunt for Temple. Gabriel's background is explored a bit more this time around, giving readers a better understanding of his motives and his reasons for hating Temple so much.

Available from Necessary Evil Press
Finishing PIECES OF HATE, I felt like I had been keelhauled. Lebbon knows how to pack his work full of action and suspense, while giving us rich characterizations as well as some of the finest writing the genre has today.

From the foreword by Brian Keene to the afterword by the author himself, PIECES OF HATE will have you flipping pages faster and faster to see what Lebbon has planned next.

Ar! PIECES OF HATE is a treasure worth it's weight in plundered gold! Miss this one, and you might as well walk the plank ye scallywags!

Available from Necessary Evil Press

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361 by Donald E. Westlake
Reviewed by Steve Vernon

Hard Case Crimes has been making a bit of a splash these days. One of their first novels, THE CONFESSION, by Domenic Stansberry, just bagged an Edgar award and two of their books have been nominated for Shamus awards. You've probably all heard that Stephen King will be releasing a brand new paperback (THE COLORADO KID), from Hard Case Crimes this fall.

I know, I know. Shamus? Edgar? What the hell is this mystery shit doing in Horrorworld?

Bear with me.

I'd like to tell you about their latest release - 361 by Donald E. Westlake. Now anybody who hasn't heard of Donald E. Westlake can crawl back under their dinosaur and wait for the ice age to pass. Westlake's been pumping out suspense since Moses wore knickerbockers. His Parker series, under the penname of Richard Stark, has got to be the wildest of dark violent action. His THE AXE, released last year, will keep you guessing in circles as the bodies pile up. It's dark, it's violent, and it might as well be called horror. I won't hold a misnomer against them.

361 has got to be where Westlake dreamed Stark up. The character, an ex-military veteran trolling into town to meet his family and running head on into an outfit of organized gangsters, (just like Stark's "Outfit"), leaving a trail of gunfire, bloodshed and hardassed revenge will take you down like a close encounter with a Claymore demolition charge. The first chapter poleaxed me. It's neat and tight, like a well delivered right cross. Buy it. Read it. Thank me later.

Available from Hard Case Crime

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VENGEANCE by Brian Pinkerton
Reviewed by Nate Kenyon

High school English teacher Rob Carus is on top of the world. His girlfriend Beth has just said yes to his romantic moonlit marriage proposal, and their future together looks bright. But as they ride their bikes home, a motorist in a fit of rage deliberately and brutally runs them off the road, and Beth is killed instantly. Rob watches helplessly from his hospital bed as the suspect, the local and well-known attorney Richard Shepherd, succeeds in convincing the police that the bikers had acted negligently and he is innocent of any wrongdoing. In spite of Rob's best efforts to prove otherwise, Shepherd goes free.

Consumed by anger, Rob becomes obsessed with the idea of finding justice for Beth, but every step he takes only seems to get him deeper into trouble. Suddenly Shepherd is talking about counter-suits and restraining orders. Just as Rob's frustration reaches the breaking point, he is approached by a stranger, who offers him the chance to get even with Shepherd, once and for all, by joining what he calls "The Circle." But this stranger's plans call for bloodshed, and as Rob will discover, the Circle always asks for something terrible in return.

Pinkerton has written a winner here, a neatly-packaged, taught as a bowstring thriller that asks a number of unsettling questions, not the least of which is, "how far would you go for revenge?" Rob is the sort of gentle-minded man most of us wish we could be, and he's instantly likable, all the more so when he loses his fiancé in such a senseless act of violence. Pinkerton does a good job of creating sympathy for the character while keeping the driving theme simple; there are good guys and bad guys in life, and it's not hard to tell the difference between the two.

What I liked the most about Vengeance is that the author then turns that premise on its head. You start to question whether the people seeking justice are in it for the right reasons, and there's a neat little twist at the end of the book that you may or may not see coming.

Vengeance is written in easy, fast-moving prose that keeps the pages flipping. While the premise of the Circle is not an entirely new one, the plot works well enough to keep you guessing. At its heart, Vengeance is a simple, character-driven story that fans of Harlan Coban and John Grisham should swallow whole. Recommended.

Available from Leisure Press

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BROKEN ANGEL by Brian Knight
Reviewed by Ron Dickie

Life in the small town of Clearwater was rather quiet. For a boy like Grim, who's spent time living on the streets of Seattle, it could be downright dull. At least it was, until Angel showed up.

Abandoned at a local diner, drugged, and with no memory of how she got there things immediately change upon her arrival. People are getting upset easily. Angry. Murderous. Suddenly, the town of Clearwater isn't so quiet anymore.

Brian Knight's name is becoming more and more recognizable in the writing field, and BROKEN ANGEL is one of the reasons why. Populated with characters that live and breath and bleed, ANGEL is a powerful story of love, loss and family.

Knight's storytelling is laid back and easy. Nothing is forced upon the reader. It is slightly reminiscent of Ed Gorman's writing, but Knight is certainly no knock-off. He is a writer with his own style and voice, and it is a pleasure to read every word he has put down.

Currently available in limited edition from Delirium Books, BROKEN ANGEL deserves the wider audience a mass market publisher can give it. It's that good.

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THE ILLUSTRATED STEPHEN KING TRIVIA BOOK ed. Brian Freeman & Bev Vincent;
Review by Jonathan Reitan

Stephen Spignesi, author of many books on Stephen King and one in a handful of "Stephen King experts", did it first in 1990 with The Stephen King Quiz Book to much acclaim which was followed by The Second Stephen King Quiz Book in 1992. After seeing the success of Spignesi's books, Robert W. Bly authored The Ultimate, Unauthorized Stephen King Trivia Challenge to very little acclaim. The book was marred with errors and incorrect answers and Bly got the heat from SKEMERs (Stephen King E-MailERs), an online community of thousands of dedicated King fans.

Seeing that there hadn't been an updated version of a Stephen King trivia book in nearly ten years and wanting to do it right, Bev Vincent (known "King expert" and author of The Road To The Dark Tower) and Brian Freeman (founder of StephenKingNews.com and author of the stunning debut novel Black Fire), provided light at the end of the tunnel to Stephen King trivia buffs with the announcement of The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book. The authors went to the same people who laid the smack-down on Robert Bly for help in forming the bulk of the questions that make up the book. Here was the deal for SKEMERs and a couple other dedicated fan bases, you send Vincent and Freeman 1 question (with answers and answer sources), they send you a copy of the finished book and the promise of your name included in the acknowledgments section if one of your questions is used.

The authors then weeded out the duplicates, sorted out the hundreds and hundreds of questions they received into categories (biography, novels, novellas, short stories, The Bachman Books, The Dark Tower series, movies and miniseries, non-fiction and appearances, and miscellaneous), created a "hints" section for those tricky questions, and an answer page. But they wanted to do something different to really set their trivia book aside from Spignesi's two books so they enlisted the help of Maine artist Glenn Chadbourne to come up with over 50 pen and ink drawings depicting characters and scenes from Stephen King books and stories. The truly remarkable art from Chadbourne is used throughout the book to make up questions. A haunting drawing of an evil clown is used to ask the question, "What is the name of this clown?" No, the answer isn't Bozo the clown.

If you thought you knew everything about Stephen King or even if you thought you knew everything about a particular book or movie, think again. This book includes questions that would stump Stephen King himself. This isn't to say that it's so difficult that you need Spignesi's Stephen King Encyclopedia on hand to get through a page of trivia. Vincent and Freeman made sure the book consists of enough easy questions to repair your ego after it was shattered because you couldn't remember the name of the drug that Annie Wilkes gives Paul Sheldon in Misery or what in the heck a "popkin" is.

If you are able to survive the Stephen King trivia workout on your brain, upon completion you are awarded with an afterword by Michelle Revelle, founder and co-president of SKEMERs, who's dedication to the King community is largely what Bev and Brian have to thank for the formation of The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book.

The Illustrated Stephen King Trivia Book provides hours of entertainment to all stages of Stephen King fans, it's beautifully designed and illustrated by a very talented artist, it's put together by not only two extraordinary men who know their King facts but by the fans who know him best, and it's worth your every penny.

Available at Cemetery Dance

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WITCHING HOUR THEATRE By Craig Shaeffer
Reviewed by Nate Kenyon

Larry Wilson is one lonely guy. He spends his nights at the Starlight Cinema, watching horror movie triple-features and trying to get up the nerve to ask out the cute girl who works the concession stand.

One October evening, Larry gets his wish, though it's the girl who forces the issue. He settles in to watch a killer triple bill. But this particular night in October will not end like all the others. As the projector rolls on and the evening moves into the early morning hours, the theater crowd begins to disappear one by one, and the line between the movie on the screen and reality begins to blur. Timid little Larry finds himself in the middle of a nightmare…and a shadowy figure from the back row keeps creeping closer.

Overall, Shaeffer's novella is an entertaining read. Though it takes a while to get going, the last half is a screamer. Larry Wilson is a sympathetic character who turns heroic under the most difficult of circumstances, and the interplay between him and the girl who works the concession stand is nicely done. Getting a date with the girl has thrust Wilson into unfamiliar territory, and he is clearly a man who depends upon the familiar and safe, making up for what he lacks by living through the violence of others on screen. Wilson's meek nature sets the story up for a dramatic change in character.

There are definite shades of Richard Laymon in Shaeffer's work. The story flows from one event to the next, while sharing the main character's innermost thoughts and insecurities, no matter how mundane they may seem. There's a growing sense of unease as the figure from the back row gets closer, a nice build up of suspense that eventually explodes into action.

Witching Hour Theatre is one of those quiet little novellas that has a way of sneaking up on you. Though there's nothing particularly new here, and there were moments that strained the limits of common sense, this is a fun read that Laymon fans in particular should enjoy.

Available for download from Creative Guy Publishing

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FLESH GOTHIC by Edward Lee
Reviewed by Ron Dickie

Something happened at Hildreth House that left thirteen people dead. Now, a team of psychics have been hired by the owner's widow to investigate what really happened that night. And why.

Sound familiar? Perhaps it reminds you of Richard Matheson's HELL HOUSE? Or Stephen King's ROSE RED? In the hands of Edward Lee, this familiar trope is given a new lease on (after)life.

Lee's prose is as quick and lean as fans of his have come to expect, but the excessive gore and violence of his earlier works like THE BIGHEAD are not as large a presence here. Make no mistake, there is gore, and there is violence, but that is not the main focus of FLESH GOTHIC. It is the story and characters that capture and hold your interest.

At turns, FLESH GOTHIC is creepy, shocking, and terrifying. It's everything you need in a good old-fashioned horror tale. Pick it up today, but don't read it alone at night.

Available from Leisure Press

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