Nile Limbaugh

The publisher tagged this book as 'horror' but a series of shootings, stabbings and strangulations does not a horror story make. On the other hand, the demon haunting a new shopping mall and causing the customers to slaughter each other, plus the team of parapsychic ghost-busters and a young lady with telekinetic powers, make this a 'paranormal' book if ever there was one. Caveat emptor.

[b:Genesis of Evil|13229291|Genesis of Evil|Nile Limbaugh|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328737952s/13229291.jpg|18421718] gets off to a great start with series of historical flashbacks but quickly loses focus with the introduction of a cast of thousands, almost every perpetrator or victim of a shopping mall death getting a mini-chapter to themselves. Nothing particularly wrong with any one of them, but too many too rapidly reduces the impact of the main narrative -- how the demon got there in the first place, and why.

The revelation is a little short on details and less than convincing, failing to fulfil the expectations raised at the beginning. The answers to the questions 'how' and 'why' are completely overshadowed by the catalogue of shopping mall deaths.

One of the shopping mall incidents -- the second in the series -- is pruriently original but never tied off. A middle-aged lady out shopping with her daughter tries on some dresses, folds them in a neat pile on the floor, then urinates on them. The reader is left wondering how the shopper owner reacted to the discovery, and whether he or she reported the incident.

An enjoyable read, but little more.… (mehr)