Sequel to Spruill's Rulers of Darkness (1995), a fresh medical suspense/horror novel and the start of a new series about hemophages (bloodeaters) in the District of Columbia. Again, Spruill gives himself a hospital setting to work with- -though the various medical analyses of vampire blood and other occult arcana, touched on in that earlier novel, are unsurprising. Nor does the plot leap forward as electrically as in Rulers. With historical background no longer new, the story focuses now on a 500-year-old hemophage's revenge on his father, himself a thousand-year-old bloodeater. Ten years have passed since the action in Rulers. D.C. homicide detective Merrick Chapman has retired, having married hematologist Katie O'Keefe and fathered a nonhemophagic son with her. Several hundred years before, Merrick turned on his kind and began locking fellow vampires up in vaults from which they could not escape and in which they eventually starved to death. To help locate bloodthirsty hemophages, who disguise their trails, Merrick turned to law enforcement and became adept at picking out vampiric victims from other homicides. His greatest enemy now is his son Zane, who refuses to be turned from vampirism. Ten years ago, Merrick confined Zane in an escape-proof vault, where he should have died after two years without feeding. But in some mysterious manner Zane has now escaped and is out to return his daughter, Jenny Hrluska, to the bloodlust natural to her. Jenny, however, now 22 and the youngest intern ever at Adams Memorial, wants to save lives, not take them. She sides with her grandfather Merrick, who hopes to die a normal death along with his wife Katie (he has watched 16 wives and 43 children grow old and die). But then Zane commits a murder attributed to Jenny, trying to force her back into the fold and to lure his father to his destruction. Less energy and richly layered excitement than before, but still notable in its field.
Pub Date: June 7, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48432-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
A fable about the consolatory and strengthening powers of religion flounders about somewhere inside this unconventional coming-of-age tale, which was shortlisted for Canada’s Governor General’s Award. The story is told in retrospect by Piscine Molitor Patel (named for a swimming pool, thereafter fortuitously nicknamed “Pi”), years after he was shipwrecked when his parents, who owned a zoo in India, were attempting to emigrate, with their menagerie, to Canada. During 227 days at sea spent in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger (mostly with the latter, which had efficiently slaughtered its fellow beasts), Pi found serenity and courage in his faith: a frequently reiterated amalgam of Muslim, Hindu, and Christian beliefs. The story of his later life, education, and mission rounds out, but does not improve upon, the alternately suspenseful and whimsical account of Pi’s ordeal at sea—which offers the best reason for reading this otherwise preachy and somewhat redundant story of his Life.
Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-15-100811-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
This novel began as a reworking of W.W. Jacobs' horror classic "The Monkey's Paw"—a short story about the dreadful outcome when a father wishes for his dead son's resurrection. And King's 400-page version reads, in fact, like a monstrously padded short story, moving so slowly that every plot-turn becomes lumberingly predictable. Still, readers with a taste for the morbid and ghoulish will find unlimited dark, mortality-obsessed atmosphere here—as Dr. Louis Creed arrives in Maine with wife Rachel and their two little kids Ellie and Gage, moving into a semi-rural house not far from the "Pet Sematary": a spot in the woods where local kids have been burying their pets for decades. Louis, 35, finds a great new friend/father-figure in elderly neighbor Jud Crandall; he begins work as director of the local university health-services. But Louis is oppressed by thoughts of death—especially after a dying student whispers something about the pet cemetery, then reappears in a dream (but is it a dream) to lead Louis into those woods during the middle of the night. What is the secret of the Pet Sematary? Well, eventually old Jud gives Louis a lecture/tour of the Pet Sematary's "annex"—an old Micmac burying ground where pets have been buried. . .and then reappeared alive! So, when little Ellie's beloved cat Church is run over (while Ellie's visiting grandfolks), Louis and Jud bury it in the annex—resulting in a faintly nasty resurrection: Church reappears, now with a foul smell and a creepy demeanor. But: what would happen if a human corpse were buried there? That's the question when Louis' little son Gage is promptly killed in an accident. Will grieving father Louis dig up his son's body from the normal graveyard and replant it in the Pet Sematary? What about the stories of a previous similar attempt—when dead Timmy Baterman was "transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?" Will Gage return to the living—but as "a thing of evil?" He will indeed, spouting obscenities and committing murder. . .before Louis must eliminate this child-demon he has unleashed. Filled out with overdone family melodrama (the feud between Louis and his father-in-law) and repetitious inner monologues: a broody horror tale that's strong on dark, depressing chills, weak on suspense or surprise—and not likely to please the fans of King's zestier, livelier terror-thons.
Pub Date: Nov. 4, 1983
ISBN: 0743412281
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1983
BOOK TO SCREEN
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