By David Peak
Blood Bound Books
ISBN: 978-0984978243
Kindle edition: ASIN: B00C163E8Q
March 2013; £6.40/£0.77 Kindle
Although this is not a long book it packs a
heavy punch. Set in a small town in the American backwoods, which has been in steady
decline for years, most of the characters are losers whose lives have been
blighted by poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, and by ghosts from a past that has
polluted everything around them.
The main character, Dan Robertson, runs the
local undertakers. Bullied since school, his half sister Grace is the bane of
his life. Known as the local bike, high on whatever drugs she can get, she is a
force for chaos for everyone with whom she comes into contact. Dan feels guilty
that her mental problems are his fault, caused when they were young children
and were attacked by a local bogeyman, Bicycle Bill. Although Dan managed to
escape, Grace didn’t. Mentally damaged by whatever happened while she was in his
clutches, Dan has tried to distance himself from her ever since, obsessively
stressing whenever she is mentioned that she is only his “half” sister.
Starting with a suicide that Dan is certain
was murder, every detail of the town’s inhabitants is grimly described. It is
the middle of winter, thick with snow and icily cold, a vivid metaphor for the
state of the community. As one death leads to another, the police investigation
encompasses drug peddling backwoods cultists, dysfunctional families with
secrets within secrets, and a morbid supernatural menace.
Vividly depicted, the flaws and weaknesses of
the various characters are remorselessly exposed. It is perhaps one of the
darkest, most nihilistic novels I have ever read, a slow motion car crash whose
development is a fascinating trek into the grim depths of a community blighted
by something that is outside anyone’s control, a supernatural presence which
uses the weaknesses of everyone it touches to spread its influence. A
thoroughly enjoyable read.
No comments:
Post a Comment