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Book Review: You Better Watch Out: A Thriller by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth

cover art for You Better Watch Out by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth

You Better Watch Out: A Thriller by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth

St. Martin’s Press, 2024

ISBN 9781250286260

Available: Hardcover, Kindle edition

Buy: Bookshop.org |  Amazon.com

 

 

You Better Watch Out by James S. Murray and Darren Wearmouth is a fast-moving thriller reminiscent of the TV series Survivor and the book trilogy Hunger Games. It’s Christmastime, and five strangers are mysteriously kidnapped, awakening in a snowbound village in upstate New York. The three men and two women have checkered pasts, including thievery, hit-and-run homicide, drug dealing, scamming and addiction. The village is a killing field strewn with deadly, macabre booby traps. One-by-one they meet gruesome deaths trying to escape while facing starvation and hypothermia. Why were they brought here? Who is killing them? Will any of them escape?

 

Murray and Wearmouth are veteran authors who have an accessible writing style. The third-person narration is direct and easily understood. The plot flows well and has enough twists and turns to draw readers in and keep them guessing until the surprising end. Or, is it an end?

Recommended for older teenagers and adults.

Contains: Profanity, violence, gore, mild sexuality

 

 

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee

 

 

Posted on August 21, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Stolen Pallor by Sean Eads and Joshua Viola

cover art for Stolen Pallor by Steve Eads and Joshua Viola

Stolen Pallor by Sean Eads & Joshua Viola

Blood Bound Books, 2024

ISBN: 9781940250649

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy: Amazon.com

 

 

With Stolen Pallor, the authors throw a twist on the old saying  that “suffering creates great art”.  Here, great art creates suffering.  Readers won’t suffer from boredom while reading this horror/mystery novella that snaps right through its 99 pages in impressive fashion.

 

Cole Sharpe is a private investigator called in to investigate some bizarre happenings at a museum in the fictional town of New Florence, a community basically dedicated to all forms of art.  The town itself is an interesting study in setting: what would it be like living in a town where artistic concerns trump most other routine matters?  The strange events at the museum consist of people suddenly going catatonic while staring at random paintings, later shuffling off and…vanishing.  It’s Cole’s job to find out where they go.

 

Cole is a strong lead character with a pretty firm moral compass and some emotional baggage from childhood trauma.  He would have been good enough to carry the story on his own, but his lover and part-time detective partner Mikey adds some good color and contrast to the story.  Mikey is more lighthearted, less serious, and also a bit more self-centered, and the conversations between Cole and Mikey add a good dose of emotional heft to the story.  The two of them together provide the material for one of the book’s most important questions: how much of what you have are you willing to risk to do the right thing?  In this story, there’s not an easy answer for that one.

 

The story also does a good job incorporating the fantastic into the mundane, as shown with the parallel version of New Florence, which the authors tie back into the obsession with art that permeates the original New Florence. That being said, the ‘alternate reality’ New Florence does allow the door to be opened to a darker realm, with fun characters like soul-sucking wraiths… and how can you not love a vampire whose name is Fangsy?  The story ends in a Hitchcockian fashion, and the final ambiguous pages leave it up to the reader to imagine where the story will go.  It’s a good way to finish up a book that works with some shades of gray, instead of just black and white.

 

Bottom line: there’s a lot of good stuff crammed into 99 pages: this one is definitely recommendable.  Hopefully, this won’t be a one-off pairing for the authors. It would be interesting to see what they could do with a full-length story.

 

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on August 20, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: What Waits in the Shadows by Wil Forbis

Cover art for What Waits in the Shadows by Wil Forbis

What Waits in the Shadows by Wil Forbis

Self published, 2024

ISBN: 9798877647923

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

 

Remember all those stories as a kid about the monster in the closet?  In the case of What Waits in the Shadows, there actually is a monster in the closet.  Not only can it talk, it rips heads off people and tosses them out like a basketball.  This makes for a pretty good story,

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Ever since Lisa Kallman, as a kid, witnessed the above treatment of her dad by the monster, she’s been trying to put it behind her, and after years of therapy, she seems on the verge of a normal life.  This part is a little paint-by-numbers: of course she works in mental health, has the new house, a great fiancée, and so on.  It gets more fun when the monster shows back up again and starts not just going after her, but those around her as well.  There is some decent suspense here, and the scenes where the monster destroys someone in bloody fashion are good fun.  The secondary character of Jeremiah O’Brien adds a nice flavor to the book: he’s the guy wrongfully imprisoned for killing Lisa’s dad.  Would you really expect the authorities to believe a story about a closet monster ripping off heads?  Of course not!  Jeremiah’s story thread, as he is hell-bent on revenge for a stolen life, adds a good perspective to the book and helps keep it from becoming too predictable.

 

The end of the book is wrapped up nicely, and the big reveal about the monster shows good imagination: it’s a nice twist on the story.  This book might have been a bit more fun if a few hints had been sprinkled throughout the story: little clues are good for keeping readers hooked.  As it is, you’ll think it’s just a garden-variety monster until the end.

 

The one part that really should have been fixed is the strange formatting.  The book has 1.5 spacing for the lines, but is double-spaced between each paragraph, which is not normally done. Also, there are no indents for paragraphs in the entire book: all the type is slugged to the left hand margins.  As a result, the book comes in at 245 pages, although it would probably be closer to 150-175 pages if formatted correctly.  I’m not sure if this was the author’s choice or an error, but it should be corrected in future printings.

 

Bottom line::it’s worth a look.  While not a must-read, it is good enough to check out when you have the time.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

 

Posted on August 18, 2024 by , Reply
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