"Further evidence, if any was needed, that all the author's heroes are direct descendants of Edgar Allan Poe, whom Silvis' own fictionalizations of (Disquiet Heart, 2002, etc.) successfully dramatized without exorcising."
Will Sgt. Ryan DeMarco, already so traumatized in his first recorded case (Two Days Gone, 2017), ever fully rejoin the human race? Seven dead girls do their best to pull him back in.
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"Slow-moving and oppressively portentous, but Silvis (Disquiet Heart, 2002, etc.) worms his way so deep into Charlotte's weariness and despair that the horrific ending comes as almost a relief."
The disappearance of a 12-year-old boy flushes out all manner of secrets in the sleepy farm town of Belinda, Pa.
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"A less capable Poe than in On Night's Shore (2001), but a graphically described descent into his opiate addictions."
Immersed in melancholia and spirits since the death of his child-wife Sissie, Edgar Allan Poe is adrift in Philadelphia until his protégé, Augie Dubbins, 17, arrives with an invitation from Dr. Alfred K. Brunrichter, wealthy head of Pittsburgh's Quintillian Society.
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"Silvis's most memorable creation is Poe himself, a god to his female relatives, a sage to his readers, a burr to literary lights like Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving, and a nuisance to his harried editors."
Versatile Silvis (Mysticus, 1999, etc.) returns Edgar Allan Poe to his journalistic roots for another look at the real-life origin of his celebrated 1842 story "The Mystery of Marie Rogêt."
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"It's as if Silvis (Under the Rainbow, 1993, etc.) needed to rub his hero raw before allowing him a frightful release."
Ever read one of those pregnant paragraphs in the newspaper and become convinced beyond all reasoning that you knew the unidentified people it was about?
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"A small celebration of human love that never denies unhappy realities: the satire, irony, and exaggeration entertain without undercutting genuine emotion."
Spare, poignant, sometimes very funny short novel about a gentle bemused man striving to hold onto hope and human bonds and outwit despair; by the author of the mystery An Occasional Hell (1993), etc. Death haunts, or bops, or entices through this quirky, unpretentious exploration of human weakness and mortality.
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"Playwright-novelist Silvis (Excelsior, 1988) settles into the detective genre with unassuming authority and a refreshing lack of condescension."
Goaded beyond endurance by months of knowing about her husband Alex's Saturday-morning dalliance with waitress Jeri Gillen, Elizabeth Catanzaro phones Jeri's rock-singer husband Rodney to tell him where the couple's enjoying themselves—and a few hours later she's facing police inquiries about Alex's murder and Jeri and Rodney's disappearance.
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