Kay's Bookshelf

Genre: Paranormal Main characters: Bourbon Kid, Kyle and Peto, Sanchez, Jefe, Jessica, Archibald Somers, Miles Jensen Time and place: Santa Mondega (South America?), about 2006 First sentence: “Sanchez hated strangers coming into his bar.” Summary: A total eclipse of the sun is approaching and the police in Santa Mondega has the situation only partly under control. A savage serial killer is on the prowl, and the situation sounds so complicated that a new detective from the division dealing with the supernatural is brought in on the case (although no one actually takes him or his division seriously). It is he who makes the most important discovery of all: one thing the victims all had in common was that they borrowed from the library the same book, a book with no name and no known author. Add to that the fact that a mysterious blue stone, the Eye of the Moon, has been stolen from its rightful owners and is somewhere in town. Almost every character in the book wants to get his or her hands on it (the rest wanting to stay as far away from it as possible), because, in the hands of the wrong person, it can alter Santa Mondega forever, and definitely not in a good way.

There are a lot of strange and colorful characters in the book, and, while we don’t get to actually know them all, their trajectory within the pages is bound to keep the reader interested. To name a random one, we have the King, a hitman who always dresses like Elvis and takes pleasure in torturing his victims. We have Jessica, a mysterious woman with quite a temper, that always, unexpectedly, manages to dodge death. There are also Kyle and Peto (two innocent monks from far away, very skilled when it comes to fighting), Carlitos and Miguel, the two inseparable minions of the most powerful guy in town (who both chose Lone Ranger costumes in a particular, dress-up day), Bourbon Kid (a guy who goes crazy, killing everyone in sight whenever his lips touch bourbon), and many more.

It is actually hard to tell who the good guys are, because in a rotten town like Santa Mondega no one is remotely good. Everyone has flaws, no one shies away from a bit of killing or stealing, and so on. And yet different people at different times show that there is more to them than their money-oriented nature (Sanchez for example has feelings that can be almost categorized as tender for Jessica), so the reader always has someone to root for (and, interestingly enough, that someone may change from time to time according to the latest revelations presented in the book).

The book belongs to no set genre, being rather hard to categorize. A thing I have found very funny was that parts of it seem straight out of a cowboy movie (although the setting is contemporary): there are bars filled with people hostile to strangers, no one hesitates to draw their guns at the least hint of a conflict, some people do get shot, and so on. While I am aware there is a whole Western genre out there, I have never read one such book, so I was excited to discover this side of the book for its sheer novelty.

Thoughts on the title: I am somewhat amused at the idea of marketing this book as the one mentioned inside it :) (sure, there are no actual similarities between the two, as that book is old, and is handwritten, and has pictures and this one doesn’t, but still :) )

Thoughts on the ending: I am actually left with a lot of questions: show spoiler

What I liked most: The writing style is similar to Robert Rankin’s, Tom Holt’s, or perhaps Lemony Snicket’s, sprinkled with witty phrases, playing with the absurd. I enjoyed it, of course, and I also enjoy the mystery around the author, who is yet unknown despite having written a sequel to the book since.
(a detail that I have found amusing is that somewhere in town there’s a Cafe Ole Au Lait :) )

What I liked least: Perhaps the fact that one of the main mysteries of the book is revealed out of the blue, with no hint leading up to it, so it felt more like “yeah right, as if” than anything else.
show spoiler

Recommend it to? I have no idea who to recommend this to. At times it is interesting and fun, at times less so. It seems to be one of those books that polarize opinions, some people being thrilled with it while other hate its guts. By all means give it a try if you’re interested in a bit of mystery with a bit of paranormal and lots of blood mixed in.

Buy this from amazon.com | Buy this from bookdepository.co.uk | The site of the book


The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Incoming search terms for the article:

Well, I am not certain what expectations I had prior to opening this book (especially given the fact that I had heard of Mr. Barker only vaguely before, plus my copy of the book had a very uninteresting cover), but I was very pleasantly surprised.

The Book of Blood

The house at 65, Tollington Place has the bad luck to be situated in the same place as a highway of the dead. A thing that, naturally enough, makes it haunted. Doctor Mary Florescu has seen her chance to prove, once and for all, that the supernatural exists, so she moved to the house, together with her assistant and a medium. This latter, Simon, was actually a fraud, taking pride in the way he managed to fool everybody. Not knowing that, in the process, he has angered the dead. The dead that, one day, did came and did leave tangible traces: their stories, written all over Simon’s body. This is how The Book of Blood came into existence — written in blood, on human skin — and some of the stories in it are those that follow.

I don’t know how to feel about this. Sure, I love the idea behind it. The imagery is interesting too. However, I did not particularly like the characters — Simon wasn’t actually supposed to be likable, which is ok, but Mary… I am left with a question mark regarding the way I should relate to her. One of the disadvantages of short stories I guess, they have too little space to determinedly define their characters.

I wonder why the doctor had a Romanian name :)

The Midnight Meat Train

Leon Kaufman is an ordinary guy, living in New York, intrigued, like the rest of the people in the city, by the latest mysterious murders discovered. People have been stripped, cut, and bled to death in subway wagons, by an unknown guy dubbed the Subway Butcher. Theories abound, and everyone has an opinion, but the unfortunate Kaufman is the only one to find out the truth, one evening when he stayed up too late at work.

I cannot add the whole quote, because it’s about one page long, but I really liked the way this story has begun: with Leon examining his feelings towards New York: it used to be his promised land, and he had been in love with it from afar for about twenty years. When his dream of coming to live here had come true, Leon was delighted, openly declaring his feelings to the world. And yet, less than four months later, he is thoroughly disillusioned:

“New York was just a city.
He had seen her wake in the morning like a slut, and pick murdered men from between her teeth, and suicides from the tangles of her hair. He had seen her late at night, her dirty back streets shamelessly courting depravity. He had watched her in the hot afternoon, sluggish and ugly, indifferent to the atrocities that were being committed every hour in her throttled passages.
It was no Palace of Delights.
It bred death, not pleasure.
Everyone he met had brushed with violence; it was a fact of life. It was almost chic to have known someone who had died a violent death. It was proof of living in that city.”

It was a story rather filled with gore — blood, blood, and more blood — and some curious creatures too. Did I like it? Not necessarily. I did read it breathlessly though, because I was quite eager to find out how it ended (and also, to find out who died, because I figured that someone must die in order for this story to end up written on Simon’s skin). Did I enjoy the ending? I have no idea. I figure it’s a good one though. show spoiler

The Yattering and Jack

The Yattering has a mission: to get the soul of Jack J. Polo for his master, Beelzebub. Unfortunately for him, there are a lot of limitations to what a fury can do to his assigned person, such as never leaving his house, or never touching him, and, although the Yattering is doing everything in its power, Jack remained completely oblivious to its manoeuvres. Stuck in the same house for months, with no company most of the time, the poor Yattering is nearing its breaking point. At least, it consoles itself, Christmas will soon be there and Jack’s daughters will come visit, giving the harpy the leverage it needs to fulfill its mission.

This story was, to me, more amusing than horror (which is why I have rather liked it, hehe). The frustration of the poor fury, plus the extreme obliviousness of Jack to all its efforts, were enough to put a smile on my face. An example of the way Jack treated life:

“Events seemed to make no dent in his perfect indifference. His life’s disasters seemed not to scar his mind at all. When, eventually, he was confronted with the truth about his wife’s infidelity (he found them screwing in the bath) he couldn’t bring himself to be hurt or humiliated. ‘These things happen,’ he said to himself, backing out of the bathroom to let them finish what they’d started.”

Definitely one of my favorites so far :)
show spoiler

Pig Blood Blues

The story takes place in a youth correctional facility, where a former policeman, Neil Redman, has just started working. Filled with good intentions, he stumbles straight into the heart of a mystery involving a pig, a current inmate, and a former one, who still roams the facilities as a ghost, or perhaps something else.

As every other story so far, this one was captivating: once I begun it I couldn’t put it down — Mr. Barker really has a talent when it comes to creating stories like that. However, this is the first story when I didn’t quite “get” what happened after a certain point, and so my enjoyment of it was a bit less than the rest.

Hats off to the title, which I have found quite inspired. This is a story having to do with pigs (one in particular), but it is also an allusion to the fact that Redman was called a pig too, due to his past in the police force. Only one of these two “pigs” will have its blood shed in the story though, so it is that one the title points out to — but still, I liked the ambiguity of it all.

show spoiler

Sex, Death, and Starshine

Terry Galloway is the new director of the Elysium theatre, and his mission is to stage a production of The Twelfth night, starring a famous actress of the moment, Diane Duvall, as Viola. Only the famous actress cannot act to save her life, so the play is in shambles, two days before opening. The salvation comes in the shape of a former devotee of the theatre, a certain Mr. Lichfield, who, knowing that this is the last performance the Elysium is ever going to see, has kindly persuaded his wife Constantia to play Viola instead of Diane.

By now the “starshine” part of the title should be obvious, the “sex” should be covered by saying that the relationship between Galloway and Diane wasn’t exactly platonic, but where does “death” come into it? Very simple: some of the characters are already dead when the story opens, some of the characters will be so by the time the curtains fall. Sort of creepy, but also sort of fascinating, I would say.

The idea at the end, about art imitating life was quite interestingly put. show spoiler

Also, there is a minor character somewhere in there called Wellbeloved, how cool is that :)

In the Hills, the Cities

Mick and Judd are in their honeymoon, touring Europe. While in Yugoslavia they get lost and reach two cities who have a very strange tradition: each ten years all the inhabitants of each city harness themselves to one another and build a giant out of their bodies, and the two giants fight each other to see which is better. This year however something goes terribly wrong, as one of the giants falls down and dies, while the other goes out of its mind and run for the hills.

This was by far the most shocking story of all. The imagery it conjures, the sheer number of human lives lost is… I don’t have a word for it. A horror story if there ever was one. I am terribly impressed both by the imagination of the author, to think up something like that, and at the way he chose to envision the two “flesh-knitted giants“: scary, disturbing, frightening, and also a sight that might be interesting to see.

A quote is most definitely requested at this point (although, not being complete, it definitely does not do justice to the concept):

It was a masterpiece of human engineering: a man made entirely of men. Or rather, a sexless giant, made of men and women and children. All the citizens of Popolac writhed and strained [...], their muscles stretched to breaking point, their bones close to snapping.
They could see how the architects of Popolac had subtly altered the proportions of the human body; how the thing had been made squatter to lower its centre of gravity; how its legs had been made elephantine to bear the weight of the torso; how the head was sunk low on to the wide shoulders, so that the problems of a weak neck had been minimized.
Despite these malformations, it was horribly life-like. The bodies that were bound together to make its surface were naked but for their harnesses, so that its surface glistened in the starlight, like one vast human torso. Even the muscles were well copied, though simplified. They could see the way the roped bodies pushed and pulled against each other in solid cords of flesh and bone. They could see the intertwined people that made up the body: the backs like turtles packed together to offer the sweep of the pectorals; the lashed and knotted acrobats at the joints of the arms and the legs alike, rolling and unwinding to articulate the city.

And I just have to mention how great I think the title is, how much I like the way the imagery those few words evoke before reading the story contrasts the one in the reader’s mind right after finishing it :)

show spoiler

Thoughts on the title: Well, there is a full story describing the idea behind the title, and I have to say I am quite a bit impressed by that :)

What I liked most: “The Yattering and Jack” was my favorite story, because it was the lightest of them all. At the opposite end of the spectrum was “In the Hills, the Cities”, also a favorite, because of the way its strangeness affected me.

Were I to choose a certain element to like then I would say the writing, a thousand times over. Not only the pace is always alert, making the reader want to discover what happens next, then next, then next, but also some sentences are very beautifully phrased (unfortunately I didn’t take notes so I cannot give an example, but this is the feeling I got while reading).

What I liked least: Not that important but I’m a bit sad that I didn’t get the ending of the sow story. Or perhaps sad isn’t the word, curious is. I wonder what detail did I miss.

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys light horror stories. Expect some gore, of course, but there’s nothing in this book to give you nightmares (or so I think, wait ’til I fall asleep tonight).

Buy this from amazon.com | Buy this from bookdepository.co.uk


The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Incoming search terms for the article:

One of the central elements of the book is the transition that Ig is forced to go though: he used to be a kind-hearted, quintessentially good person, always making the right choices and so on (so much so that Lee reached a height of social success by trying to emulate him). And yet the horrible thing that happened to him transformed him in a demon. I can’t help but wonder what is the message that the author wanted to send out (if there was one), something along the lines of “there is a time for being good and a time for being bad”. It is debatable whether Ig got any satisfaction out of avenging Merrin’s death (he probably did since it was what he needed), but small as that satisfaction can be it sure beat the alternative: the good Ig would never have known who did it in the first place, not to mention the rest of the details.

Speaking of who did it, I was partially amused to notice that the villain in this piece was rather similar to the one in the latest book written by Mr. Hill’s father, Under the Dome. Rennie, the used car salesman in the latter book, is somewhat an older version of Lee: they’re both using God and righteousness as a shield to hide their lack of moral values (with a bit of craziness on the side). This being said I was a bit sad about Lee when I read about him as a child, that previous, un-mentally disturbed version of him that was actually likable. But hey, the book needed a villain, right?

Also, I have very much liked the way Merrin’s character was built, little by little, brick by brick. She was definitely the love of Ig’s life, but other than that there is much we don’t know, and the reader’s opinion of her fluctuates almost with each and every scene. Ambiguity – a nice thing to have in a book, I would say, it makes for a more interesting ride — and that was the case here, too.

The timeline alternates between the present and flashbacks of the past (sometimes as seen by Ig through others’ eyes via his special abilities), and to be honest at times I have found the past (especially some of the parts involving young Ig, and Lee) a bit boring — I assume though that this is not that much a fault of theirs, it simply has to do with a fact that the present (horns + people unconsciously sharing their secrets) was way, way cooler than anything grounded on reality could ever be.

The book also contains an interesting theological debate: Ig, the horned one, feels like his mission is to punish sinners. It is, after all, what the devil does. The question being, is then the devil good or bad?

A quote somewhat related:

“[...] In a lot of ways, I guess Satan was the first superhero.”
“Don’t you mean supervillain?”
“Nah. Hero, for sure. Think about it. In his first adventure, he took the form of a snake to free two prisoners being held naked in a Third World jungle prison by an all-powerful megalomaniac. At the same time, he broadened their diet and introduced them to their own sexuality. Sounds like a cross between Animal Man and Dr. Phil to me.”

Thoughts on the title: Self-explanatory. The central idea of the book, no more, no less. Although it does come to mind that the horns are only the starting point, not the essence.

Thoughts on the ending: Loved it :) Just as implausible in its own way as the ending of Mr. Hill’s first book, and yet I was just as happy so see it come to pass. show spoiler

What I liked most: The whole getting to have horns idea was quite cool. Especially as the author has taken care of people’s reactions when noticing them. Making them want to spill their darkest secrets was a nice touch too. Also, show spoiler

What I liked least: show spoiler

Recommend it to? Anyone who likes Stephen King, as the style is rather similar (although Mr. Hill is a bit tamer so far). Anyone who enjoys thrillers too.

Buy this from amazon.com | Buy this from bookdepository.co.uk

The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Incoming search terms for the article:

From the very beginning it is obvious that in this book, like in some previous others, Mr. King has tried to explore the idea of a small group of people (good and bad), ending up outside the reach of the law. From this point of view the book reminds me of The Stand, where this separation from any law being applied came from the fact that there were simply no people left to apply it (the flu has killed 99% of the US population). In Under the Dome though this separation is quite literal, since we have the huge dome of glass that lets no armed force in. Add to that the fact that most of the police force inside the dome ends up consisting of bad guys and that’s a recipe for disaster right there.

The first (predictable) effect of such a rupture from the outside world would be (and is, particularly in this book) that the bad guys would let their lack of scruples (and their temporary invulnerability) go to their heads. And Mr. King is not one to shy from describing such deeds. We have multiple murders, a gang rape, arson, beatings, thievings, take your pick. What is the most awful is that most of these things happen almost within sight of the Army, stationed on the other side of the dome, and there’s nothing anyone out there can do because there’s no way to get in. As one of the characters put it, the armed forces were “Like kids looking into an aquarium where the biggest fish takes all the food, then starts eating the little ones.”

One of the fortes of the book is the fact that, albeit there are a lot of characters, Mr. King has managed to infuse them all with their own personalities and motivations. Sure, the good guys are good, and the bad guys are bad, but they are all believable and their choices make sense. Rennie for example, the all-around bad guy, sincerely believes that “This was the high point of his life, his chance to achieve the greatness of which he knew he’d always been capable.“. Adding to that his unwavering belief in God (and the fact that God is on his side no matter what he’ll do) we begin to get the idea of a dangerous man, a man who will single-handedly turn the quiet life of the small town into anarchy in no more than a few days.

Another thing I have enjoyed while reading was the imagery surrounding the Dome. When I first read summaries of the book I thought of the Dome as a sheet of glass, hardly visible for anyone looking at it, but nevertheless visible. But the actual Dome looks like… nothing. It does act like a sheet of glass, from the sound it makes when people knock on it, to the way it gets dirtied by pollution and things crashing into it, but it cannot be seen. Making the people who bump into it all the more surprised, and the related imagery (people trying to touch their hands but unable to, although there is no visible obstruction) all the more powerful. Speaking of imagery, the description of natural phenomena as seen through the Dome are quite cool too (my favorite was the part with the pink stars falling, of course, when the stars “come down in brilliant pink lines. Some of the lines crisscrossed each other, and when this happened, pink runes seemed to stand out in the sky before fading.“).

I think that, even if I hadn’t known who the author of this book was, I would probably have guessed it while reading. Not only do people die right and left (regardless on whose side they’re on), but there are also small clues now and then, clues that are to be found in almost every book of Mr. King’s. For one, we have the children sharing prophetic visions (that most of them don’t remember afterwards). Also, my favorite, the statement that repeats itself throughout the book, at various intervals (as far as I can remember every single book by Mr. King that I have read had a phrase like that, usually part of a song or something out of the main character’s childhood, that someone keeps thinking about). In this case the said statement is shared between many people (almost every important character thinks it at one time or another), is part of an old hit-song and goes like this “it’s a small town and we all support the team“.

The book would probably make a great movie, as it is very fast paced (something breath-taking is always happening), plus I can just imagine the special effects that could be created on this purpose. Not to mention the fact that the very presence of Barbie (a very good ex-Army guy, who just happens to be in the right place at the wrong time) made me think of a blockbuster movie from the very moment Barbie’s past was revealed :)

Something I didn’t think of while I was reading is the political side of the book — here’s what Mr. King had to say about it:

Sometimes the sublimely wrong people can be in power at a time when you really need the right people. I put a lot of that into the book. But when I started I said, “I want to use the Bush-Cheney dynamic for the people who are the leaders of this town.” As a result, you have Big Jim Rennie, the villain of the piece. I got to like the other guy, Andy Sanders. He wasn’t actively evil, he was just incompetent—which is how I always felt about George W. Bush. I enjoyed taking the Bush-Cheney dynamic and shrinking it to the small-town level.

While I (who live so far away from the States) barely know who Cheney was, and very little of what he did or did not do, I find the very fact that the book is sort of inspired from real life quite cool. Let’s call that an extra layer of the thing I liked most in the book, which is…

What I liked most: Unsettling as it may sound, I think the book was a great study of human nature. It other words, it explores people and feelings that are very believable for me; most people act the very way I would expect them to. For example, I can just imagine how, if something that bad would happen, the vast majority of people would look up to their leaders to tell them what to do and how to behave. I can also very well imagine how those people who abstain from doing bad simply because they’re afraid of the law would unleash their worst once it’s clear that no punishment can be inflicted on them (Nazi Germany anyone?). Not to mention the fact that many people would have trouble adjusting to the new world, clinging “to the notion that the world was as it had been before the Dome came down”, thus falling prey to the people who have a lot less scruples than that. And many, many more.

What I liked least: Silly but I kept being bothered about the Internet (how did they have Internet if the landlines were cut off? A city this small couldn’t have had Wi-Fi all over) and the cellphones still working (I know that air permeated the dome but would it have been enough for the cellphones? Somehow I doubt it.)

Thoughts on the ending: First of all, I noticed that many people said they loved the book until the ending, which they didn’t quite like. For me it was quite the opposite, meaning I thought it to be about the only ending that could actually make sense.

show spoiler

Recommend it to? First of all, I have read a lot of S. King’s books. Not all of them, but a lot. Second, this is quite possibly my favorite of them all. So yup, I recommend it to anyone around :) (however reader beware, there’s usually a lot of brutality in Mr. King’s books and this one is no exception).

See also
Chester’s Mill map (via Amazon)
The official site of the book
The “official” site of Chester’s Mill (a bit freaky, especially as it includes links to the site of Big Jim’s used cars dealership, the site of Chester’s Mill newspaper and the site of Sweetbriar Rose).

Written by the same author:
The Black House (with Peter Straub)

The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

Popularity: 27% [?]

Incoming search terms for the article:

As far as characters go I did like, of course, all the main ones. Jack Sawyer, the one knowing he’s in for more than he bargained, and also knowing he must still go on. Henry Leyden, the incredibly gifted blind man, with all these characters hidden inside him. Judy/Sophie (especially Judy), such a courageous woman. Also the Thunder Five, the “learned motorbikers”, so to speak, especially Beezer St. Pierre, their leader and father of the killer’s first victim. I admired each of these’s courage in those extraordinary circumstances.

As far as the plot goes, maybe it is a bit forced at times and maybe Speedy Parker intervenes a bit too many times for comfort (I’m sure no one likes it in books when the hero is caught in a sort of unavoidable serious trouble and then something supernatural happens and he’s home free; it’s neither enjoyable nor believable). A particular example would be that bouquet Speedy left in the police bathroom, one that not only calmed the angry mob but later its smell kept Tansy Freneau from the verge of lunacy and helped George Potter remember…
Also the final battle was a bit too easy because of that, some old effect from the once held Talisman killing the one that kept the children prisoners without the smallest effort? I mean hello, where’s the suspense in that?

I did like though the idea of some strange character from another world being the one pushing serial killers to do their deeds and the fact that some things in the latter’s behavior were repeating because of that. I don’t know why, it just seemed so mysterious at the time, seeing those coincidences 70 years apart and not knowing what to make of them :) However I found a bit over-the-top the idea of absolutely all the universes and worlds out there being at stake, I don’t know why, perhaps because it’s being a bit clicheistic after all the “hero the only one able to save the world” plots one meets everywhere.

I also liked the ending, both expectable and unexpectable (I did expect that it will end that way but not exactly that way if you know what I mean :) ). It also amused me a little, the way the authors alluded at some unknown problem in the Territories that would need to be solved, thus hinting at a next book :)

All in all it was an okay book, even though I found it a bit dragging at first. I liked The Talisman way more though.

Also written by Stephen King:
Under the Dome

The links to amazon.com and bookdepository.co.uk are affiliate links. If you click one of them and buy something, I receive a small percentage of the purchase price. This being said, rest assured that the few cents I might thus make will never influence what I say or do not say about any book reviewed on the site.

Popularity: 2% [?]