Graham Masterton, Edgewise

Edgewise

Graham Masterton

Leisure, May 2007, $7.99, 336 pp.

ISBN 0843954264

Lily is asleep when a noise coming from downstairs awakens her; there is someone in the house. When she goes downstairs she finds two men dressed in black and wearing masks waiting for her. They say she is a witch because she didn't treat her ex-husband Jeff right. They set her on fire and take her two children away but Lily is able to break free of the bonds and escape with only some burns. She is told by an FBI agent that she is not the only woman that this happened to and FLAME (Father's League against Mothers) takes the credit.

They believe Lily's ex-husband Jeff has the children and a nationwide hunt begins. When three months go by, Lily still doesn't have her children and in desperation she tells her boss Bennie that she is willing to have private help; he recommends John Shooks who suggests George Iron Walker, a Mdewakantin Sioux for the job because he can call up the Wendigo, a hungry spirit who will search for her children until it finds them. She is skeptical until she sees the Wendigo and Lily then gives George the go ahead. The Wendigo, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake, finds the children but Lily can't give George the payment he demands. A vindictive man, George will kill everyone Lily loves and then kill her to get what he wants.

Graham Masterton is a first-rate horror writer whose latest novel takes a legend from Native American mythology and gives it life. The Wendigo is a force not human so it has no human values or morals and is guided by the one who has summoned it. Mr. Masterton describes the spirit so well that the readers feel that it actually exists in our world for those who have vision to see it. The action never lets up as the heroine, a strong-willed woman, goes to extraordinary lengths to protect those she loves.

Harriet Klausner