There's usually a scene in a Masterton book that gets to me, gives me the creeps yet makes me want to keep reading. But I didn't get that this time, so I consider this a minor Masterton in that regard. It's also a tad too much in love with its own sadism for my liking -a matter of personal taste as I know a lot of people like the more gory of his works. As ever, the man knows how to tell a story and move it forward, but this one isn't up to his usual high standard. ( )

Graham Masterton again taps into ethnic mythology to produce this tale which refuses to tip its hand until the screws have been really tightened down. Insurance investigator Michael Reardon looks into the deaths of a Supreme Court nominee and his family in a helicopter crash that the reader knows from the opening chapter is a lot more gruesome and mysterious than he is told. But he gradually comes to understand how bad it was and the growing threat to him and others. Well written, Masterton builds the suspense...I spent the last 100 pages trying to figure how Reardon was going to get out of this quandary. Or if he would...because that is a way to go in a horror novel (I do not care for that kind of ending...why put your hero through all that misery just to let him lose?) Excellent book from a highly regarded horror writer. ( )

Synopsis
When a helicopter crashes, the bodies of a young Supreme Court justice and his wife are found bizarrely mutilated, and their daughter's body is missing. An insurance investigator searches for the truth, and becomes involved in a nightmare maelstrom of horror. By the author of "Manitou". ( )

NIL