The City by S.C. Mendes

Blood Bound Books, 2017

ISBN: 9781940250335

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition  (Amazon.com)

The City is a well-brewed mix: one part early 1900s detective story, one part horror, and one part insanity.  It’s a potent recipe, and this book sizzles from start to finish, but it’s an extremely disturbing novel as well.  Some of what you read in this book, you may wish you could unread.  Despite that, it’s a powerful story that keeps pulling you along.

The book is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Max Elliot is the proverbial grizzled vet detective called back to duty for a murder case similar to the one that cost Max his wife and daughter.  The story quickly veers away from the usual, as Max learns of a city (the City, as it’s known) located many miles beneath San Francisco,  accessible only to certain topdwellers, and run by lizard-men called the Mara.  That’s where the case leads him, and where most of the book takes place.  Max finds answers, but he also finds a hell that makes Dante’s Inferno looks like a children’s playground.

This book has everything you want: outstanding characters and development, twisting plot, and a fast pace, but it’s the City itself that is the true star of the book.  That’s what will keep readers burning through the pages, wondering what else the City can throw at Max and his allies.  It’s a place of pleasure and pain, where every vice and perversion is available.  It’s somewhat similar to the attitude of the Hellraiser franchise.  Think of the worst things you can, then sit back and read, because the author thought of worse things and used them in the City’s pleasure gallery.  Readers who, (for whatever reason) have a knowledge of ancient torture methods will recognize a few, as the  bronze bull from Roman times makes an appearance.  It’s another world, and a very well thought out one: the location is a character in itself.  This is also where the true ugliness in the book takes place. It’s not the unspeakable atrocities performed on humans (although that’s bad enough) but it’s the people in the city that happily pay to watch such atrocities, often pleasuring themselves at the same time. If you have doubts about the nature of the human race, this won’t help.  The City is a depressing, bleak look at a segment of humanity, and will leave you feeling drained afterwards.

Bottom line here: this is phenomenal stuff, but it’s likely to make readers bottom out as well.  There’s no sunshine and roses, no happy endings; this is dark, sunless material.  If you liked Clive Barker at the peak of his storytelling abilities, you will love this. It’s the same wild nightmares on overdrive.  No doubt about it, based on this book, S.C. Mendes is a force to be reckoned with in horror.  Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson