Thursday, April 12, 2012

Torn-Lee Thomas

Torn


Lee Thomas

Cemetery Dance, Jun 2012, $30.00

ISBN: 9781587672651



Luther’s Bend is a quiet town where violence never happens and even petty crime is rare. Thus when someone kidnaps eleven year old Maggie Mayflower in the park, the townsfolk is shaken. Sheriff Bill Cranston leads the investigation of the abduction his friend Les’ daughter. The only witness, the victim’s tweener friend Emily, gives a vague description of an old man. A posse searches and finds Maggie, but one of the men Arthur is grabbed by what looks like a monster with gray skin and a snout.



Bill assumes the culprit wears a mask but is shocked with how strong he seems. He shots twice hitting the monster, but the beast escapes. The next morning, a man fitting Emily’s description to a T is arrested. In rhyme, Douglas Sykes pleads with Bill to kill him before others like him destroy his town. Though hard to accept, Bill believes the old man and the monster are the same being and that a horde of like him will descent on Luther’s Bend to kill Sykes for afflicting them with his disease and subsequently attack the townsfolk. Bill prepares for a siege, but even he is unprepared for what shockingly occurs.



This is a very creepy macabre horror thriller as the key cast members including the apparently dichotomous Sykes seem real and their behavior (especially the townsfolk) believable. Lee Thomas shows his talent with creating a premise that human interaction leads to at a minimum duality as Bill is a dedicated law enforcement official and a troubled husband with an acrimonious addicted wife while the mythological monster’s twoness is physically blatant. Readers will enjoy this exciting novella as a pack hunting their monstrous creator is coming to tear down Luther’s Bend.



Harriet Klausner



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