Simon Clark, Darker

Darker

Simon Clark

A stranger asks Rosemary Snow if she wants the kind of power that will make people do anything for her and she says yes. They drive to a distant area and something invisible but monstrous and huge comes to where the teen is. The stranger drives away and Rosemary is taken to the hospital badly injured.

After months of non-stop work, Richard Young takes a vacation planning to do nothing but lounge around the house. All that changes when a bloody Michael arrives on the scene. He asks the family for help and although they try to aid him, the invisible Beastie keeps following them killing everyone that gets in its way. At one time the Beastie was inside Michael in a symbiotic relationship where it got to experience life and Michael got to have power and sways people's opinions due to the charisma that is a by-product of the symbiosis. When Michael came to England, the Beastie separated itself from him but he has a devised a plan that involves Richard's daughter Amy getting the Beastie back under his control. Richard with the help of Rosemary intends to stop Michael or die trying.

Anyone who wants to read a big thick juicy horror novel that will snare the reader so much that they will want to go to sleep with all the lights on will definitely love DARKER. Simon Clark taps into the primal fears of his audience yet there are scenes when Michael seems like an ordinary man which makes him all the more frightening. If ever a book deserves a Bram Stoker award nomination, this is one that does.

Cemetery Dance, March 2006, $40.00, 600 pp.

ISBN 1587670305

Harriet Klausner