I feel that you need to be prepared properly to enjoy Blood And Rain, the latest offering from the up-and-coming Glenn Rolfe. Glenn is yet another author from Maine to throw his hat into the horror genre ring. Now before you Stephen King purists out there yawn and let out a "Ho Hum", you need to check your ego at the door. While the state of Maine has given us horror addicts King, Ketchum and others, Rolfe proves that there must be something in the New England water that breeds creativity. Blood And Rain is a werewolf tale that is how werewolf tales are meant to be told. Fast, furious, and balls to the wall.

 

Gilson Creek, Maine is that kind of small town that we all know and love. Its familiar and comfortable, like we've been there before, maybe even lived someplace like it ourselves. It's slow paced, blue-collar and everyone knows each other. But not all has come up roses in this idyllic town's past. In 1997, a set of killings during a full moon cycle caused the residents to check their calendars and lock their doors everytime the moon is full. The sheriff at the time proclaimed it was from a wild animal attack, probably a mountain lion, even though a mountain lion hadn't been witnessed in those parts since 1936. Soon afterwards, he resigned as sheriff and promptly checked hiimself into a mental hospital amidst a breakdown. The deputy at the time, Joe Fischer, is now the new sheriff and a new batch of killings has started up again after all these years and wouldn't you know it - the moon happened to be full. Gilson Creek isn't unlike any other small town. They all have their secrets. But for Gilson Creek, their secret is back and its spilling blood. A lot of it.

 

Blood And Rain is not Charles Dickens. But Blood And Rain is a wild midnight ride with the lights off, your hair on fire, and the music cranked to 11 and should be viewed as such. Rolfe is new and it shows. This story has some warts - the pacing can be off a touch, you'll change POV without warning, but this book is fun. A real page turner. I flew though it at breakneck speed and its been a while since a book has captured me like this one. The blood is spilled by the gallons and the carnage is brutal. Rolfe's werewolves enjoy ripping limbs off. I've seen blurbs that compare him to Stephen King and Richard Laymon. I'd have to agree and disagree. Rolfe tells a tale that captures your attention like King without all of the wordiness. He also spills the red stuff like Laymon without the rediculous silly characters and dialogue. As you can probably tell, I'm now a fan. I think you will be too.

 

I received an e-copy of this book in return for an honest review.

5 bloody appendages out of 5

You can also follow my reviews at the following links:

 

https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5919799-ken-mckinley

http://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/A2J1JOKW56F2YT

A woman is brutally raped and her attacker is taken to the morgue. When the sheriff goes to the morgue to see if he can identify the dead assailant, the body isn't there. Soon a naked man is spotted running out of the hospital's ER doors. The sheriff sends his deputy after the man and the deputy ends up brutally murdered in a disemboweling that is determined was done by a large, unseen, wolf-like animal. At the scene of one killing, a mysterious man shoots a "killer" leaving a mysterious, half-changed body that resembles both a human and a wolf. The strangers informs the sheriff that "he's got a werewolf infestation" in his small Northern California town of Big Rock and that its spread as a STD.

 

I have to give Garton an A for creativity. I love how he updates the lycanthrope mythology and interweaves it in a tightly written thrill fest. The main characters are distinctive and no one is above being the next victim.The blood pours from the pages as the carnage piles up. The werewolves are vicious and show no mercy. This is my first read of Garton's work and I highly recommend it.

 

4 1/2 silver bullets out of 5

You can also follow my reviews at the following links:

 

https://kenmckinley.wordpress.com

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5919799-ken-mckinley

http://www.amazon.com/gp/profile/A2J1JOKW56F2YT

I've been on a "Weird Al" kick for the last couple of weeks (due in part to finally seeing him live), and as I was listening to his catalog, I was reminded how I appreciated his parodies so much more in the '80s and early '90s. Back then, I still listened to popular music, and I was familiar with the videos that accompanied them, so I was able to catch all of the subtler jokes that played around with a particular lyric or scene. During the concert, the inhaler joke from "Inactive" was lost on me because I didn't know the Imagine Dragons song well enough to realize there's something similar in the actual song.

I bring that up because I've never read Robinson Crusoe, and I feel like much of the impact of the mash-up is also lost on me. As I was reading Clines' retelling of the story using lycanthropy and the Cthulhu mythos, I downloaded a Kindle version of the book to get a sense of how much Clines changed Defoe's original narrative (conclusion: not much), and also to see how much of it he abridged (conclusion: quite a bit), but I didn't bother reading the entire thing. I still feel like I know enough of the story to get a sense of it without having to read it, and having now read The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe, I can't imagine it would be quite as interesting.

In fact, the recent trend of mash-up novels hasn't made much of an impression on me because I haven't read any of the classics they're based on. I was sort-of tempted by Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter because it was more an alternate history story than a mash-up, but even then, I couldn't get too interested in it. The main reason I decided to read TEAotLRC had more to do with Peter Clines than anything else (though I'll admit that the Lovecraftian elements intrigued me more than zombies or sea serpents or vampire hunters or what have you). 14 was enough for me to want to read more of his work.

The thing is, TEAotLRC isn't really Clines. It's more Defoe than anything else. Crusoe being a werewolf is a brilliant addition to the actual story, as it does more to explain Crusoe remaining on the island for so long. Here, Clines tells us that Crusoe was already wracked with guilt over his condition, and over causing the death of one of his shipmates, and he chooses to remain there to protect himself and others. At first, it seems odd to include the lycanthropy angle at all, but the more Clines takes us in that direction, the more sense it makes.

The Cthulhu aspect of the story also works remarkably well, since Cthulhu lived in an underground city in the South Pacific, which is exactly where Crusoe was stranded. As evidenced by Lovecraft getting co-author credit for this novel, Clines lifts large portions of "The Call of Cthulhu" and adds them to the story, putting them in just the right place to make them work with the setting. In fact, the mash-up works so well that I'm surprised that, with all of the Lovecraftian authors out there, this was the first time someone had the idea to put the two stories together.

My only complaint was that it took a long time for the Cthulhu angle to get going in the story, and that once it did, it was still more an afterthought to the stranded-on-an-island story. Clines hinted at it early in the story (on Crusoe's first sea voyage, he's part of a crew that loses their ship to an underwater creature, and he keeps mishearing the captain mutter to "Gon" instead of God), but it wasn't until the halfway point that the mythos started to enter the story. Up until then, it was mostly Defoe, with an occasional reference to the Beast to remind us that this Crusoe was also a werewolf. Once Crusoe befriended Friday, the Lovecraftian elements took another backseat, again to the original story by Defoe.

I admire the potential of this story, and respect what Clines has done by mashing these three stories together, but I can't honestly say I'm a fan of the resulting story. Ultimately, it was too much Defoe and not enough Lovecraft or Clines.

In this short story we meet Nick and Tracey, two paranormal investigators. Someone has murdered a family of campers. Nick believes he knows who or what committed the ferocious murders but Tracey, who is new to the paranormal world, isn't as positive.

The Lycanthrope Murders is a good start to (hopefully) many adventures of these two paranormal sleuths. The author creates a sinister mood and spooky environment for his story. Although, in my opinion, the werewolves were a little on the dense side.

Enjoyable story overall though and I look forward to reading more from the author.