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Book Review: Conquer (John Conquer Series, Book 1) by Edward M. Erdelac

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Conquer (John Conquer Series, Book 1) by Edward M. Erdelac

Independently published, 2020

ISBN: 9798579334848

Available : Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Harlem, 1976: an era of bad clothes, bad habits, and bad music.  From this scene emerges John Conquer, private investigator, and the baddest brother around.  How bad?  Well, “didn’t he kung-fu Frankenstein off the marquee at the Apollo, and bust him to pieces with John Henry’s hammer?  Didn’t he go fishin’ and catch the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and throw him back because he was too small!  He played ball with Dr. J in Rucker Park, and let him win!”  Conquer is a folk hero to Harlem, and his exploits have grown into legend among the locals.  These are his stories.

 

Conquer consists of seven short stories, three were previously published in Occult Detective Quarterly in 2017.  The stories are consistently entertaining, if a bit formulaic at the beginning of each story.  They usually start with Detective Lou Lazzaroni of the NYPD being assigned a case.  Lou realizes that the cases have a supernatural bent to them, and that’s where John Conquer steps in.  Although he’s a standard PI, Conquer also has a deep knowledge of voodoo, hoodoo, and all kinds of occult stuff, as he was partially raised in Louisiana, America’s capital of pagan weirdness.  It’s up to Conquer to solve the cases and save the day.

 

Author Erdelac has done a nice job writing a horror period piece: his portrayal of the late 1970s feels quite authentic, both in terms of setting (ox-blood leather coats, linoleum, lava lamps, etc.) and dialogue.  The dialogue feels very accurate with its terminology and phrasing, and does a good job transporting the reader back to another time in American history.  After Conquer is brought onto each case, the author shifts gears and shows a strong flair for creativity.  Readers might assume that voodoo automatically means zombies, but only one story actually has the undead.  Instead, Erdelac does a nice job cross-pollinating various African and Asian mythologies into the story.  Examples include a Slip-Skin Hag (or ‘boo hag’), a Popobawa (a bat-wing creature) and a monster based on Dahomeyan beliefs that defies easy categorization.  He did an excellent job researching these creatures for the book, but there are times when a little more explanation would have helped.  Unless you’ve read Wade Davis’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, terms like bokor, vodoun, veve, and Papa Legba are likely to sail over the heads of most readers, sending them scrambling for Wikipedia.

 

The stories are fast with no wasted time. Conquer dives right into the action, destroying villains with often-creative methods, such as cigarettes laced with sage for exorcising demons, and a pocket-coating powder that renders pickpockets immobile and subject to Conquer’s commands.  Part of the character’s appeal is that he doesn’t just blast away with his Colt Python, but often relies on his own magic methods to beat the baddies at their own game.  Special mention must be made of a fantastic secondary character, in the form of the ghost of a dead pimp that haunts Conquer’s car, and speaks to him through the radio.   This also allows Conquer to control the car through voice command, when the ghost agrees.  It’s like a bizarre 1970s version of the television show Knight Rider, and the back and forth squabbling provides unexpected and welcome hilarity.

 

Overall, Conquer is a welcome horror novel throwback to another era.  Let’s hope for more from Conquer and company in the future.  Recommended.

 

 

Contains:  violence, profanity

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on February 16, 2021 by , Reply

Women in Horror Month: Book Review: Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power

cover art for Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle

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Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power by Sady Doyle

Melville House Publishing, 2019

ISBN-13 : 978-1612197920

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook

Sady Doyle has written a witty, chatty, insightful, and angry book on female monstrosity. Her premise is that women who claim ownership over their voices and bodies are constructed as monsters because they violate the social and biological norms that threaten men’s control over them- they are a threat to the patriarchy. Doyle identifies three key roles women fill in our patriarchal society and divides the book into sections on “daughters”, “wives”, and “mothers”. She has a lot to say about mothers: that section gets twice the number of pages as the other two sections combined.

Doyle has combed through pop culture, history, literature, fairy tales, myths, horror, true crime, sociology, and personal anecdotes to find examples and support for her theories, and when she does a deep dive into a topic (as she did on a number of girls and women, including Annelise Michel, Bridget Cleary, and Augusta Gein), or a critique of The Conjuring, it is fascinating and memorable. However, Doyle jumps around a lot, and it isn’t always clear how things are related.  Her writing flows well, and she does a nice job making it relevant and tying it to recent events.

If you’re looking for an enjoyable feminist take on monstrous women, you’ve found it.

The book includes an annotated list of works cited, endnotes, and an index.

 

Recommended.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sady Doyle’s premise is that female monstrosity is determined by patriarchy, which she describes as a social, cultural, and moral structure that is founded in men’s absolute power and control over at least one woman, generally through instilling fear in them.  Doyle contends that women who claim ownership over their voices and bodies are constructed as monsters because they violate social and biological norms that threaten men’s control over them. She identifies three key roles women fill in our patriarchal society, and devotes a section of her book to “daughters”, one to “wives”, and one to “mothers”. She chooses from a variety of literary, legendary, historical, and pop culture examples and stories to discuss female monsters, both fictional and real, that exist outside society (or are ostracized by society), and the female victims of monsters that the patriarchy requires.

Posted on February 1, 2021 by , Reply

Book Review: Five Midnights by Ann Davila Cardinal

Five Midnights by Ann Cardinal Davila

Tor Teen, 2019

ISBN-13: 978-1250296078

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, and audiobook

“When the U.S. gets a cold, Puerto Rico gets pneumonia.” In the United States, the mainland tends to forget that Puerto Rico is part of the country, and many Puerto Ricans have learned that federal government agencies don’t really want to get involved when disaster hits due to this (witness the travesty of the aftermath of Hurricane Maria). Five Midnights takes place before the hurricane hit, but it is easy to see that mainlanders, mostly white and wealthy, are viewed with suspicion due to their contribution to gentrification, which is driving locals out of even middle class neighborhoods to areas where gangs, drugs and crime are profitable and attractive tp teenagers trying to make it in a struggling economy. It’s no surprise when Vico, a successful teenage drug dealer, dies violently while on his way to a deal, but what only the reader knows is that the death is due to a shadowy, clawed, supernatural creature.

Enter Lupe, a half-Puerto Rican, half-white teenager who has traveled from Vermont to Puerto Rico to spend the summer with her aunt and uncle (who is also the chief of police). Lupe is independent and contrary, and fascinated by crime, an interest her uncle has previously encouraged. The case of the drug dealer touches on a family member, her cousin Izzy, who has disappeared, and her uncle does not want her involved, but that only makes Lupe more determined. Lupe is feminist in a very teenage girl “I can do it myself, don’t you dare help me” kind of way,  an attitude that made an otherwise independent young woman seem like she needed to be rescued (for instance, walking into traffic because it was suggested she wait, and having to be pulled out of the street after nearly getting hit by a car). Her character does grow a lot as she meets a variety of people and experiences parts of Puerto Rico she wouldn’t have seen as a tourist and begins to understand the impact the mainland, and especially mainland investors, are having on the country. Cardinal does a great job in describing pre-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico. I almost felt like I was there. I want to give her props, too, for her portrayal of adults in the story. YA fiction frequently depicts adults as clueless and closed-minded, but when these teens really needed them, the majority of adults listened, and stepped up, without taking over.

Because Lupe resembles her white mother instead of her Puerto Rican father, she  also gets a lesson in colorism. Although she sees herself as Puerto Rican, the other teens she encounters call her “gringa”, white girl. It’s confusing to her at first, because she identifies as half-Puerto Rican, and can’t understand why no one else understands that. However, she comes to recognize that she does have white privilege and as a mainland American takes some things for granted that many Puerto Ricans cannot. At the same time, the friends she makes come to recognize that there are parts of her that are very Puerto Rican after all, even if they’re not immediately visible.

Our other major character is Javier, who grew up with Vico and Izzy, but kicked his drug habit and is working hard to stay clean and make up for the damage he did while he was involved with drugs. Despite a rocky beginning, Lupe and Javier decide to team up to find Izzy and solve Vico’s murder. They become more and more convinced that El Cuco, a shadowy supernatural creature bent on retribution is after Javier and his friends. It is refreshing to see a monster  grounded in local folklore, appearing in a contemporary story, instead of the same tired tropes.

I loved seeing Puerto Rico take center stage when so often it’s ignored, and enjoyed watching Lupe and Javier puzzle out the mystery and each other. The climax is an outstanding, terrifying, mystical, and visually evocative piece of writing. This was Cardinal’s debut novel, and I look forward to her next one, Category Five, set in post-Hurricane Maria Puerto Rico.  This is a truly Stoker-worthy book. Highly recommended.

 

Contains: violence, murder, mild gore, drug abuse

Editor’s note: Five Midnights was nominated to the final ballot of the 2019 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.

Posted on April 15, 2020 by , Reply
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