The Hunter from the Woods By Robert McCammon

The Hunter from the Woods
By Robert McCammon
Copyright 2011

What is a lycanthrope in the eyes of God?

These stories all occur before or after the action in the McCammon novel, The Wolf's Hour.

The Great White Way
A young Mikhail is working as an animal keeper in a gypsy circus. He is having an affair with the girlfriend of the circus’ professional wrestler. She tries to set him up for a fall after he speaks to another woman. Mikhail has the last laugh.

The first story starts to fill in the backstory of Mikhail, still a youth freshly escaped from the fate that met his fellow werewolves. I loved the narrative voice combined with sparse dialogue.

The Man from London
A spy from London infiltrates a remote Russian village in search of a man that is believed to have extraordinary abilities that will help the British cause. He finds a filthy youth living in a church, surrounded by his own filth. He is disgusted by young Mikhail and the time he wasted in searching him out. However, when he tries to escape Russia, he finds that Mikhail does indeed live up to his billing.

As a stand-alone short story, this was a bit thin. However, it fills in another space in Mikhail’s backstory.

Sea Chase
Michael Gallatin is aboard a freighter in the days leading up to World War II. He is posing as a deck hand to protect a Nazi defector and his family aboard the ship. A Nazi ship is in pursuit and eventually catches up to them. Michael and the captain combine their efforts to lead their nearly crippled ship to safety while defeating the Nazis.

This was everything a short story with an established character should be. It can’t quite stand on its own because McCammon is assuming you know Gallatin’s backstory. However, the plot and the other characters work incredibly well and the story is inventive and exciting.

The Wolf and the Eagle
While flying from the desert battlefront to Cairo, Michael Gallatin’s plane is shot down during an aerial battle. His shoulder is badly injured and he is in the middle of nowhere. He is soon taken prisoner by the German aviator who shot down his plane. The enemies soon find common cause when they are hunted by desert warriors who know no side in the conflict and kill indiscriminately. They also face a common foe called thirst. Finally, coming upon a village of desert marauders, Gallatin hatches a plan to get water that will require the men to cooperate.

Not much of the werewolf trope in this story, but a good story nonetheless. It was not hard to see where it was going with the enemies having to combine forces to survive. What is remarkable is the portrayal of the German aviator as a great warrior and a decent human being. That characterization along with great storytelling make The Wolf and the Eagle another worthy entry in the life story of Michael Gallatin.

The Room at the Bottom of the Stairs
Michael Gallatin’s new assignment is the oldest of the old spy assignments. Make his way into Berlin to seduce a magazine photographer who has been quite adept at identifying members of the German resistance and having them killed. Gallatin meets her and the two are instantaneously taken with each other. Michael finds himself falling for her hard, despite what she is. Eventually word comes down that he’s the man to do it and it has to be done now. Michael dispenses with his usual means of disposing of people to do something different for this woman.

This was quite a long story and was mostly a love story. No werewolves were present until the end when Michael had to make his final escape. It was quite well told and, while we knew that McCammon could produce some decent erotica, we learn that he writes the stuff on par with Jacqueline Suzanne and Judith Krantz.

Death of a Hunter
It’s 1953 and Michael is living in his remote Scottish estate as a recluse. His last job involved learning more about Chinese operations in Singapore and he was photographed as a wolf. The Chinese have made it a point to capture him alive or dead – but preferably alive. When they arrive, he, at an advanced age, finds his toughest opponents yet.

This story was short and sad. All that we know about Michael – his tragic childhood, his warrior background, his proud lycathtropic heritage comes to an end. I felt the end of Michael Gallatin like I’ve felt the end of few characters. I did not realize how much this book added to how deeply I felt about him until I got to the end.

Mister Slaughter By Robert R. McCammon

Mister Slaughter
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 2010

The adventures of Matthew Corbett continue in the third installment in Robert McCammon’s remarkable and thoroughly enjoyable series. Instead of solving mysteries, Matthew is hired security to escort a mass murderer to justice.

In the wake of his adventures in The Queen of Bedlam, Matthew is basking in his new found celebrity. He’s the toast of the town for unmasking The Masker. He dresses like a dandy and likes to be seen in New York’s trendiest taverns. But his budget is suffering for it.

A chance find of lots of cash would seem to be the answer to Matthew’s budgetary woes. Before he can put the money to work, however, he and Hudson Greathouse are hired and dispatched to the Bedlam Asylum to pick up Tyranthus Slaughter – a mass killer in London and a notorious highwayman in the New World. They are to escort him to New York where he will be shipped to London to meet justice and the hangman.

Matthew and Greathouse arrive at the asylum and take Slaughter into custody. However, greed waylays them and allows Slaughter to escape. Matthew and Greathouse barely survive and Greathouse is badly injured. They are rescued by some local Indians. One of the Indians, who spent a great deal of time in Europe, agrees to help Matthew track his quarry.

Slaughter proves to be the most diabolical being Matthew has ever encountered. He kills without compunction or motive on his way to meet his employer – an agent for the notorious Professor Fell who has placed a death mark on Corbett and Greathouse. Matthew is riddled with guilt as he and Walker In Two Worlds track Slaughter across the countryside in a game of cat and mouse. The bodies pile up and Matthew knows that, had he divulged his acquisition of wealth to Greathouse before Slaughter led them astray, these deaths would have been avoided.

Matthew finally catches up to Slaughter at a remote hog farm, renown for their fantastic sausage. There, he learns a great deal about the enigmatic Professor Fell. Before he can catch Slaughter, however, he escapes and sets out to carry out another murder assignment. The target is someone very close to Matthew.

Matthew pursues him and the two meet. When the chips are down, Matthew finds an unlikely ally and Slaughter meets his end. He returns to the Indian reservation to find Greathouse nearly healed and ready to return to New York.

In earlier reviews of Speaks the Nightbird and The Queen of Bedlam, I professed and indifference to mystery stories, but my enjoyment of those two novels which were indeed complex mysteries. This book was a cat and mouse chase story. I normally revel in chase stories like Mine and Gone South by McCammon. However, I did not enjoy this book as much as I did the earlier works.

This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the reading. McCammon has me hooked on Matthew Corbett. The deliciously morbid twist near the end was delightful. McCammon’s characters were as interesting as ever. The book suffered no major defect and is beloved by Corbett fans and fans of McCammon.

I didn’t find this chase story as compelling reading as the mysteries. All in all, the events in the chase were pretty predictable except for the aforementioned twist. Matthew’s mysterious ally was obvious. The fight scenes were pedestrian. I like Matthew more for his wits than his brawn.

This was also, by far, the shortest of the Matthew Corbett novels. It was not the immersive experience the two prior books were. I love a long, deep novel with rich characters, interweaved subplots, and compelling action. Of course, Corbett and Greathouse are already developed by the earlier novels and McCammon does a fine job with Walker In Two Worlds. But there were no subplots. The chase was straight forward.

My minor gripes aside, this was a fine entry in the Corbett series and an enjoyable read. It is not as dense and layered as the earlier entries, but shows another side of Corbett – the Matthew Corbett tried by physical challenges rather than mental.

The Queen of Bedlam By Robert McCammon

The Queen of Bedlam
By Robert McCammon
Copyright 2007

Three years after Matthew Corbett freed the falsely accused witch of the Fount Royal settlement in the Carolina colony, Matthew Corbett has relocated to New York City. He is a clerk to a distinguished magistrate and a young man about town. He is also a bitter, angry young man bent on revenge against Eben Ausley, the evil head of the orphanage where he grew up.

As Matthew stalks Ausley through the streets of New York, cataloging in his mind Ausley’s comings and goings and gambling losses, he stumbles into a murder mystery. A serial killer is working the streets of New York and his nom de guerre is The Masker. He has already killed a doctor and, as Matthew stalks his quarry through the streets, he comes across a second murder – that of a local merchant who was well respected in town.

Loving a good mystery and always determined to see justice done, Matthew devotes his spare time to the solving of the Masker murders. He comes to the attention of a local businesswoman who runs a “problem solver” agency – private investigators. Matthew is hired as a junior associate of the Herrald Agency and put into rigorous training in fighting and self defense.

He also comes to the attention of the widow of the businessman who was murdered. She offers him ten shillings to find her husband’s killer. Matthew gives up clerking and turns to private sleuthing.

His first official case for the Herrald Agency is to visit a nearby asylum where an elderly woman is housed. She is incommunicative, but is kept in regal comfort by a mysterious benefactor. In talking to her, Matthew quickly establishes a link between the Masker murders and the mysterious Queen of Bedlam.

The case takes a stranger turn when Aubrey himself is the victim of a Masker murder with Matthew in pursuit. He stalks the murderer to the home of a local lawyer and acquaintance. The lawyer, dubious of Matthew’s suspicions, allows him to search the home. He finds nothing.

As the case evolves, Matthew soon unravels underhanded and unethical business practices in the New World spanning between New York and Philadelphia. In doing so, he comes to the attention of a mysterious, villainous criminal empire headed by a faceless Dr. Fell. He and the daughter of a local printer are taken prisoner by Dr. Fell’s men and are confronted with the prospect of becoming quarry in a hunt carried out by young orphans brandishing daggers. In the end, and unlikely alliance of good and corrupt comes together to save the day and Matthew escapes. He returns to New York to unmask the Masker and solve the crime.

He returns to the Bedlam asylum for one final meeting with the Queen. He brings with him the answer to her mysterious question and ties up all the ends. He looks forward to advancing in the Herrald Agency and moving on to new adventures while avoiding the mysterious Dr. Fell who now has it in for him.

I enjoyed McCammon’s second installment of the Matthew Corbett series every bit as much as I did the first. As I stated in my review of Speaks the Nightbird, I am not a fan of mysteries. Nor am I much of a fan of historical fiction. But I am a fan of Corbett and a huge fan of Mr. McCammon.

I don’t read enough mystery fiction to be an expert on how they should be written. I have read enough to recognize telegraphed clues, obvious suspects, thin red herrings, and ex deus machina and how it ruins the book. The reader is not going to find that in the Corbett series.

Just like Speaks the Nightbird, McCammon keeps the reader thinking. The red herrings are well disguised and not discerned easily. The clues are well disguised and cleverly contrived. There are several mysteries within the mystery and more than a few subplots which McCammon brings together delightfully at the end. If McCammon keeps writing mysteries, I’ll certainly keep reading them.

Recurring characters can be a mixed bag for writers. Too often, they become like the Hardy Boys. Same people who never change solving the same mysteries with different venues and different clues. Corbett evolves under McCammon’s treatment. He’s no longer the naïve youth just a few years out of the orphanage. He’s older and angry to a large degree. His anger directed at Eban Aubley serves to make him a human and plausible character rather than a caricature hero dedicated to truth, justice and the American way.

McCammon does not let that bitterness and anger undermine what we like about Corbett which is his dogged determination to do what is right. The problem of Aubrey is sorted out nicely to lend itself to the mystery, resolve the reader’s – and Matthew’s -- desire for justice for the fiend, and to leave Matthew’s hands clean.

Corbett gets a sidekick of sorts in The Queen of Bedlam that promises to add future dimensions to new Corbett adventures. Hudson Greathouse, a senior partner at the Herrald Agency, is Matthew’s superior and trainer and sometimes antagonist. He’s the opposite of Matthew in that he’s surly, a brawler, and cocksure. The addition of Greathouse increases the awareness of Matthew’s shortcomings and enhances his strengths. The partnering lent itself well to Matthew’s development in The Queen of Bedlam and promises to make the next book in the adventures of Matthew Corbett, Mister Slaughter, more interesting as it promises Matthew’s further development.

As Stephen King once said, people are much more interesting than monsters. In the hands of a lesser writer, Matthew Corbett could be the same character confronting a new monster each week on the same station. That would be boring. With McCammon at the helm, Matthew Corbett promises to be an evolving character meeting new and different situations. That is a promising prospect for his fans.

Speaks the Nightbird By Robert McCammon

Speaks the Nightbird
By Robert McCammon
Copyright 2002

Matthew Corbett, raised in a New York orphanage, is now the clerk for magistrate Isaac Woodward. The year is 1699 and the two are en route to the Carolina colony settlement of Fount Royal to oversee the trial of Rachel Howarth – accused of witchcraft and the murder of her husband and the local minister.

The two are waylaid on their way by an unscrupulous innkeeper, but eventually arrive in the colony, sans all of their worldly possessions. The rainy weather has afflicted Woodward with a cold that gets progressively worse. Woodward resolves that the trial will go forward despite his ill health.

Matthew makes a grievous error before the trial begins that costs him dearly. He enters a barn belonging to the blacksmith to investigate. He finds some strange objects secluded in a bag buried in the hay. Before he can ascertain what they are, he is caught and sentenced to three days in jail and three lashes.

At the order of the settlement founder, he is jailed alongside of Rachel Howarth and is immediately smitten with the dusky woman of Portuguese descent. She is polite and occasionally looks to Matthew for emotional support, but obviously does not return his affection.

As Matthew is imprisoned and colony officials press for the trial to move forward, the trial is held in the jail itself so that Matthew may continue his sentence. Witnesses to Rachel’s witchcraft are brought in one by one. They describe seeing sexual congress with demons and Satan himself. Yet, there are no witnesses to the murders themselves. Matthew is convinced she is guilty of neither crime and is determined to prove her innocence – much to the chagrin of the locals.

The inhabitants of Fount Royal want Howart executed and the sooner the better. Her presence and fear of her has caused many to leave the colony. They blame her evil for the ongoing rain that has blighted many crops. Unexplained fires take the schoolhouse and uninhabited homes. The sooner Rachel Howarth is burned at the stake the better as far as the people of Fount Royal are concerned.

Matthew is eventually released and receives his three lashes. As Woodward becomes bedridden with his malady, Matthew commences with his investigation. He learns about the strange residents of Fount Royal – the Oxford educated school master with a bum knee, the blacksmith with a strong affection for his horse, the master of Fount Royal and Matthew’s host who is determined to see Howarth burn, the ratcatcher with a taste for ancient literature, a settlement clerk with a strong grudge against his employer. Also in town are a group of “maskers” or actors who are to deliver a performance of morality tales to lift the spirits of the townspeople and a preacher who has his own proposal to “save” Rachel.

Clues abound. There is the theft of a Spanish gold coin taken from the waylaying innkeeper. Turtles with Spanish coins in their bellies. Mysterious deliveries of buckets of incendiaries in the night. Matthew struggles to put it all together.

Matthew encounters many red herrings in his investigation, but eventually discovers who is behind the two murders, the framing of Rachel, and their motives involving secluded pirate treasure. But he can’t prove any of them to the magistrate. With his health ebbing, Woodward signs Rachel’s death warrant. Matthew becomes desperate.

He decides to take her from her prison and flee to the Florida country. Being Portuguese, he is hopeful that she can find sanctuary among the Spanish. With the help of a couple slaves, he spirits her away and they head south into the swamp. As they make their way toward Florida, Matthew is attacked by a bear. He is badly injured but manages to kill the bear. They are rescued by some friendly Indians and in their camp, Matthew finds the final piece of the puzzle that will allow him to return to Fount Royal and prove Rachel’s innocence.

They return to find Fount Royal nearly empty. The continued bad luck and the escape of the witch have driven people away. Working with his host, Matthew is able to assemble all of the suspects in one room and one by one, eliminate them until the real murderer is proven.

Rachel is set free and decides to stay in Fount Royal for a while. Magistrate Woodward struggles valiantly against his illness – and against 17th century curatives, but eventually succumbs. Before he dies, Woodward gives to Matthew the name of a magistrate in New York who will provide him with employment.

The book ends as Matthew leaves Fount Royal and the Carolina colony behind, a little richer in money and having loved a woman who could not return that love. He heads for New York for new employment and thoughts of visiting vengeance upon the master of the orphanage where he grew up.

Speaks the Nightbird was Robert McCammon’s triumphant return to publishing. While the book reestablished the author after nearly 10 years of silence, it was also the book that derailed his career.

Like all writers do, McCammon grew in his skill at crafting stories and matured. Behind him were B-movie pastiches and other horrors. He had written a beautiful coming of age story in Boy’s Life, a fantastic chase thriller with Mine, and a quarky thriller with Gone South. He was clearly moving away from the horror genre and determined not to get pigeon-holed as a horror writer.

His publisher was unhappy when he delivered Speaks the Nightbird – a historical fiction murder mystery. They wanted another horror story they could market with McCammon’s name which had increased in value with horror readers. McCammon, discouraged, withdrew the manuscript and retired from writing.

Almost 10 years later, he submitted to Speaks the Nightbird to a small publishing house in Alabama. They took a risk on the voluminous book and published it. In doing so, they released to the public another McCammon masterpiece.

For someone who did not write mysteries, McCammon’s first effort was absolutely brilliant! There are no easy solutions to the crimes in Speaks the Nightbird. The red herrings are all plausible. Like classic murder mysteries, everybody and nobody had a motive. The young lady who was framed was tragic. Young Matthew’s love for her pure. It all worked quite well together as McCammon weaved his tale.

The inhabitants of Fount Royal are all quarky and bizarre in their own way, but never silly. Nobody is over the top in their behavior and all conform to the social norms of the period. As Matthew encounters them again and again, the characters and suspects become more richly developed and more mysterious. I do not ordinarily enjoy murder mysteries, but when the characters are as well developed as these, it is impossible not to enjoy the story.

To dismiss Speaks the Nightbird as just a murder mystery is to give it short shrift. It functions as a wonderful piece of historical fiction. It is a wonderful character study of Matthew. Many subplots are working underneath the murder mystery and, while not all are directly related to the mystery itself, they serve to enrich the plot and make the book more engaging.

My only complaint about Speaks the Nightbird is a small one. The resolution of the murder is a trite device. Gathering all the suspects in a room and cross examining them is too much like the mass produced Ellery Queen, Sherlock Holmes, Perry Mason mysteries. A better device could have been employed. Having said that, McCammon does make the best use possible of the cliché. He has you guessing right up until the resolution.

Speaks the Nightbird is an absolute triumph for a brilliant author who would defy convention and publishing house dictates. McCammon would not be confined to horror. There is nothing wrong – and very much that is right – with writing horror for a living. But McCammon obviously felt he’d mined the genre for all he could. He had to go where his muse took him and it took him to Matthew Corbett’s world – a world he would revisit again and again with great success.

Since it was published in 2002, Speaks the Nightbird and its hero, Matthew Corbett have generated sequels that fans find equally thrilling and satisfying. The Queen of Bedlam, Mister Slaughter, and later novels all feature the young law clerk. It is not unusual for an older writer to become attached to a hero such as Corbett and decide to see where the writing takes him. Stephen King has latched onto Detective Bill Hodges in the waning days of his career. Dean Koontz has his Odd Thomas and the characters of Frankenstein to explore. None of them are as good or deep as Matthew Corbett.

Speaks the Nightbird is a fantastic genre blend. Well researched, it is a fantastic historical fiction novel. Well plotted with excellent characters, it makes a fine murder mystery. With its notions of witchcraft and demons, it will appeal to fans of horror. Kudos Mr. McCammon on one of the finest novels of the 21st century so far.

Gone South By Robert R. McCammon

Gone South
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1992

Dan Lambert is a Vietnam veteran living in rural Louisiana and fallen on hard times. Behind on his work truck payments, he struggles to find day work to make ends meet. The days are hard on him because he has a brain tumor – the result of exposure to Agent Orange.

One day, he goes to the bank to appeal to the loan officer to get an extension on his payments because he’s two payments behind. The old loan officer he used to deal with is gone and a new guy is there. The new guy is unyielding. Dan blows up – or goes south in the parlance of the Vietnam vet – and tears up the office. A security guard approaches and the loan officer pulls out a gun. Dan takes the gun and shoots the loan officer in the neck. Having killed him, Dan flees.

He takes off in his truck and drives into the country to hide. He eventually finds a remote camp with cabins where he can stay. He makes arrangements with his ex-wife to see his son just one more time before he becomes a permanent fugitive for the rest of his short life.

Meanwhile, the bank has put out a $15,000 reward on Dan Lambert and a bounty hunter decides to put his best man on the trail. Flint Murtaugh is an itinerant gambler in debt and needing a bounty. His boss puts him onto Lambert, but insists he take on a partner to train the new guy. Murtaugh is not happy, but not in any position to argue.

Murtaugh arrives at a shabby hotel to meet his new partner. The man who answers the door is a malodorous, fat slob who bears a striking resemblance to Elvis Presley. When he speaks, he sounds just like the King. He introduces himself as Pelvis Eisley and he has a little dog that goes everywhere with him. His boss made it clear that if he wanted this collar, Eisley was going to go along.

Dan has held up at a remote resort camp in the swamp that has seen better days. He is going to wait it out there until night when he plans to slip into town and call his ex-wife, hoping to arrange one last meeting with his son. He goes in and makes the call and the wife agrees to slip her police protection detail and meet him at a park.

They meet and Dan starts talking with his son. However, Murtaugh and Eisley show up, planning to take Dan – who has developed a reputation as a cold blooded killer after the husband of the couple who kept the camp was found murdered. (He was killed by his own wife). A scuffle ensues and while his ex-wife tangles with Murtaugh and his “little brother” who is nothing more than a third arm that protrudes from his chest and explores its surroundings at will. Dan wrestles away Murtaugh’s gun, unloads it, and flees, throwing it away. He gets in his car and tears off, almost hitting Eisley and his little dog.

Dan flees through the night and arrives at a truck stop in the wee hours of the morning. While having his coffee, he notices a young couple having an intense argument. The young girl is beautiful except for a large, wine stain birthmark that covers almost half her face. When her ride ditches her, the waitress suggests that Dan take the girl down the road since they are headed the same direction.

Dan is reluctant to take on passengers, considering that law enforcement will be prone to pointing guns at him eventually. Arden Halliday is insistent that she ride south with Dan so that she might enter the swamps and locate the legendary Bright Girl who has the power to remove the unsightly blemish from Arden’s otherwise beautiful face. Nearly exhausted, Dan relents.

Murtaugh and Eisley are forced to stake out a remote cabin owned by a friend of Lambert – The only lead they have. They sit for hours and Eisley talks incessantly, driving Murtaugh crazy. Eisley eats and drinks junk food constantly and his dog constantly yips as Eisley fawns all over it. Murtaugh has had it and decides to move. They go into town to use the bathrooms and get something to drink.

While there, Murtaugh notices a group of strong men unloading alligator they have poached from the swamps. He does not pay them much attention until they attack him in the bathroom, convinced that he is working with a rival drug dealer. Murtaugh is about to experience some severe indignity before dying when Eisley breaks into the room and takes care of the men assaulting Murtaugh. They escape to return to their perch to watch the cabin.

Finally, in the wee hours of the night, Dan and Arden pass them there. Murtaugh switches on the lights and the pursuit is on. They fly out the gravel roads at high speeds and eventually, Dan’s car goes off a bridge and into the water. Dan and Arden escape underwater while Murtaugh and Eisley search the wreckage.

Dan Lambert and Arden float far downstream and find a small encampment where there are boats. They take a boat and head for an offshore oil rig a few miles out in the swamp. There, they are treated halfway decently and Arden gets some leads as to where she can find the Bright Girl. She is eager to pursue them while Dan is eager to get out of the country.

Soon after their arrival, Murtaugh and Eisley show up for their quarry. Dan is allowed to eat his last meal before Murtaugh shackles him. While everyone is eating, the local leathernecks are hassling Eisley for an Elvis number. Instead, he sits at the piano and plays wonderfully a mix of classical music fused with jazz and creole. The audience – including Murtaugh and Lambert are blown away by his talent.With the arrest affected and the tension ramped down, they all try to convince Eisley that he has a real future in music – much better than he has in private investigation and bounty hunting.

The next morning, the whole group is taken by the drug runners Murtaugh had encountered earlier and taken to a private island to be disposed of. A firefight ensues on that island and Danny and Arden escape to a charity hospital. Murtaugh and Eisley also escape, pondering a new pursuit in the music industry. Arden will serve as THE bright girl for this hospital and Dan will serve out his days as a maintnenance man before his sickness can take him.

According to Mr. McCammon, Gone South was written during a very dark period in his life. Much of that darkness is reflected in the characters. Dan, an otherwise good guy, is a legitimate fugitive from justice for killing someone. Dan is a veteran who served his country faithfully. He’s not the villain. He got cancer from his government dumping toxic chemicals on him while he was waging war.

Arden is a victim seemingly as without hope as Dan. Her surface beauty cursed by an unfortunate birthmark. Her hope rests with a seemingly impossible cure provided by a shaman. That’s all she has to hang on to.

Murtaugh is tragic as well, with that odd appendage growing from his chest and a youth lived in freak shows. More tragic for him is having to suffer the irritating companionship of Pelvis Eisley. If you’ve ever been trapped in a car for hour upon hour with a person who just irritates the hell out of you with everything they say and do, you feel sorry for Murtaugh. Murtaugh’s motivations do not make him a villain. He’s doing a job.

Eisley is not a villain because, despite his annoying personality and bizarre countenance, he is a good guy trying to learn a new trade to support himself. He has no ill will toward Dan. We find out that he is in fact a talented musician who hides talent behind a bizarre stage show.

Like we do in all McCammon stories, we get exceptionally complex characters who are good and evil, tragic and heroic, all at the same time. Managing characters like this is a real challenge for even an exceptional writer. To manage the characters and keep the plot going is a real challenge.

This novel resembles Mine in that it is a chase story. The pace isn’t nearly as frantic. But the characters are a lot broader and deeper.

The darkness of McCammon’s mood shows in that neither of the main characters really get what it was they were after. They get a resolution that will bring them some satisfaction. But Dan is never going to get escape or redemption. Arden is never going to get her surface beauty ruined by a freak birth defect. Not a happy or satisfying ending.

McCammon has never written a bad book that I’ve read and I’ve read all but the very latest. Going South is probably ranks in the lesser of his works. It has not the great gravitas of Swan Song. It lacks the frantic energy of Mine. It lacks the spooky element of They Thirst.

That said, McCammon tells a nifty story outside of the genre of horror. That was his goal. He wanted to show his chops as a writer at a time when his publisher was demanding horror and his southern contemporaries were demanding he write about the southern experience. Other than weather and geography, there was nothing in Gone South that was about the Southern experience. Other than the vague allusions to the witch living in the swamp who could heal Arden’s birthmark, there were no supernatural allusions.

It would be approximately 10 years before McCammon would publish again. This time, he’d eschew both traditional settings and the southern experience to tell a tale of historical fiction. That voluminous tome, Speaks the Nightbird, brought him back and perhaps assuaged some of those old feelings of anger and professional jealousy of horror writers who were able to break out into more traditional writing. God knows McCullough has the writing chops to go head to head with any writer in America today.

Mine by Robert R. McCammon

Mine
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1990

It’s the 1990s of day traders, hedge funds, and multi-million dollar deals in the country’s financial centers. In the midst of all this, Laura Claybourne is a successful journalist married to a successful broker. They have a beautiful home with beautiful cars. The only hitch in their marriage is they never seem to have enough time to spend with each other to keep the marriage healthy.

Laura Claybourne is pregnant with the couple’s first child. She has a happy life on the surface. Her husband, a commodities dealer in Atlanta, makes a good living and they have a good home. She is a society page reporter for a local newspaper. But she suspects that perhaps her husband is having an affair.

Mary Terrell – aka Mary Terror – is a sixties radical hiding underground. She was a soldier in an organization called The Stormfront. The Stormfront waged war on the establishment, killed cops and bankers and blew up buildings. They were high on the FBI wanted list. One night, the cops stormed their headquarters. Only a few made it out, including Mary and their leader, Lord Jack. They all flee separate directions and off to different lives to live underground. Mary Terror is a sleeper agent, waiting for the summons to rejoin the Storm Front Brigade.

Through a message in the Rolling Stone Magazine, Mary – Once known as Mary Terror – has seen an advertisement for all remaining members of the Storm Front – a 1970s radical group who fought the establishment through a series of murders and bombings aimed at ending the capitalist system of government. Their Leader, Lord Jack, has summoned her. She must have his baby ready when she meets him in New York.

As Laura moves into the ninth month of her pregnancy, she starts to get suspicious of her husband who has to make himself scarce so often in the evenings, leaving her alone. One day, she decides to call her boss’s husband who can not confirm her husband’s story of being out with a client. Eventually, Laura puts it together by following him one evening to an apartment complex where her husband goes upstairs with a six pack of beer. She has some thinking to do before the baby arrives.

Mary has her own thinking to do before her meeting with Lord Jack. When she last saw Lord Jack as the pigs were shooting up their apartment in New Jersey, she was pregnant with her child. In the process of escaping, she lost that baby. Losing a baby would not be acceptable to Lord Jack. Mary wanted to present him a beautiful child as their son. She has practiced caring for a baby on dolls, and it always ends badly. Now she needs the real thing.

Laura finds the evidence that proves that her husband is having an affair and throws him out. A short time later, she goes into labor and goes to the hospital with her husband and parents.

Meanwhile, Mary has acquired some guns and a costume that will allow her to get into the hospital and steal a baby. Dressed as a nurse, she slips in and takes Mary’s little boy from her arms, out of the hospital and to a waiting van. She heads off for New York.

Laura is distraught to the point of hysteria. She is able to pick out Mary Terror from an FBI file and the FBI starts looking for her. Unable to stand still with lose ends, Laura launches her own investigation.

A couple months prior, she had been given a book to review by a guy who spent a great deal of time with various 60s radical groups including the Storm Front. After a great deal of arm twisting, Laura gets the man to take her to Ann Arbor to meet a retired member of the organization who might know something about the whereabouts of the old gang.

When they arrive there, the woman isn’t home, having gone to a cabin in the woods for a few days to paint. That night, Laura does a little recognizance on the woman’s cabin and encounters a man also looking around. They fight and the man escapes. The next day, when the woman returns, Laura meets Bedelia, Bedelia is adamant she is not going to get involved. As they start talking, shots ring out and kills the guy riding with Mary. Mary fires on Laura and Bedelia and miss him. They manage to escape, chasing Mary and Laura’s baby down an interstate while an unknown party continues to track them.

Mary is headed from Michigan to San Francisco where they Storm Front Brigade owned a home. Mary is confident that it is there Lord jack will meet her and accept his new, beautiful son he has for her. Laura and Bedelia are determined to see that she doesn’t make it there.

The three chase each other down the highway for hours, exchanging occasional gunfire. Finally, the third car, that contains an old, retired FBI agent with a grudge to score with Mary, wrecks and kills himself. It’s now just Laura and Bedelia versus Mary Terror. From time to time, Mary pulls off and ransacks the home to kill the people, take their food, vehicles, and guns. Mary and Bedelia rob a pawnshop for money. When Laura and Bedelia meet at a lumberyard, their car gets shot up in the firefight and all parties get their bodies chewed up by guard dogs.

Mary tears away in her van and Bedelia and Laura steal the yard master’s car and follow in pursuit. Mary has a several hour head start on them and, as they enter the mountains, the weather starts to turn treacherous.

Both Mary and Bedelia have an old newspaper photo and some names of men living in a town near San Francisco where the Stormfront was founded many years before. Mary plans to get there, find Lord Jack, and take up life as a family woman. Laura plans to kill her if she has to to stop her.

Mary is wounded from a major dog bite on her thigh she received at the lumber yard. She is hurting and has lost some blood. The roads are becoming impassible, so she pulls off into a lodge where stranded travelers are being put up. A few hours later, Laura and Bedelia arrive and confront her.

A shootout ensues and Bedelia is killed. Mary takes off into the diminishing storm. Laura follows, but falls far behind when her car’s radiator gives up the ghost.

As Laura is getting her radiator fixed, Mary arrives in town and begins the search. The first guy she finds is not Lord Jack and she kills him. She moves on. Laura arrives in town and begins her search using the same set of clues. They arrive at Lord Jack’s house to find he’s settled into a life of quiet domesticity. A shootout ensues. Mary is killed and Laura gets her baby back.

This was McCammon’s first novel outside the realm of horror or the supernatural and he proves he has the chops for it. Mine is a taught chase thriller with believable characters, superb and plausible plot, and a narrative that seldom pauses to let the reader get his breath.

The novel fuses two very different decades. It brings the “burn, baby, burn!” decade of the late 1960s into the self-focused, self possessed decade of the 1990s. Two value systems and two different generations collide to create friction and conflict.

It also introduces another element of conflict within culture. There were the radicals hell-bent on destroying capitalism in America versus the “silent majority” as Richard Nixon called them who were average Americans who worked and paid bills.

There is a minor subtext within Mine that was brought much more to the fore in the famous baseball movie Field of Dreams. It is how the peace and love generation who devolved into the Yippies and the Weather Underground atone for or live down their previous lives. Mary hurt her wealthy parents who wanted so much for her. Bedelia did the same to hers. Bedelia went underground, but strived to live a life that was free of violence and harm. She tried to do right in helping Laura and found redemption in her actions. Mary, like a few of those radicals from decades ago, remained true to her cause. McCammon could have strengthened this subtext just a bit more by assigning a few more bad deeds to Bedelia in her past. Still, it worked.

Laura was the protagonist in Mine, but Mary Terror was the star. McCammon wove a true to life character. So many radicals of that time and of our time subscribe to causes and ideologies not to advance any core beliefs, but to provide a context for their lust for blood. Mary is no true believer in the cause of world socialism. She is nothing more than a sadistic killer needing ideological fuel to stoke her furnace. She’s as terrifying as any supernatural monster.

As a chase novel, Mine worked exceptionally well. McCammon’s interludes were all plausible. The finding and escaping rarely relied on ex deus machina. That was tough to pull off, but never does the reader groan when one of these meetings takes place. It all works. The pacing and the tension in the pursuits is also nicely done. Both parties are injured and hurting. Both are driving junker vehicles. Neither knows if they will make it. The tension was palpable throughout Mine.

McCammon really stretched himself when he wrote this book and it was a breakthrough for him. He would become enamored with writing more mainstream material – much to the chagrin of his publisher. McCammon’s difficulties with his publisher are well documented and after another mainstream effort, Gone South, it would be a long time before McCammon would write again. When he did return to writing, he was writing historical fiction – good historical fiction that maintained his already dedicated fan base.

The Wolf’s Hour By Robert McCammon

The Wolf’s Hour
By Robert McCammon
Copyright 1989

What is a lycanthrope in the eyes of God?

Michael Gallatin, British spy and Russian werewolf. He reconciles his dual existence to become a hero of D-day.

The Wolf’s Hour tells two tales. It tells the story of spy Michael Gallatin infiltrating the upper echelons of the Nazi command to gather intelligence about a possible counter operation to thwart the D-Day invasion and the story of young Michael Gallatin who is bitten by a werewolf as a child and becomes a werewolf.

Mikhail Gallatinov is the young son of a Russian general loyal to the Tsar. One day, while his family is on a picnic in the Russian countryside, the Bolsheviks catch up with his family and assassinate all but Michael who is off in the woods. After the attack, the soldiers and Michael are attacked by wolves. The wolf spares his life and he is taken to a remote castle where he soon joins a small pack of lycanthropes who live there in secret.

Michael is raised by this pack, learning to hunt and learning all that he will need to eventually function in normal society including languages, mathematics, and history. Eventually, the Russian soldiers catch up with the pack and all of Michael’s new family is slaughtered. He escapes and makes his way to Great Britain.

Many years later, with his name changed to Gallatin, he is a retired British spy, having earned hero status in Libya during the desert campaign. While there, his lover is murdered by a German spy. Heartbroken, he retreats to his English castle.

He is approached by the British and Americans about infiltrating the German command to learn more about a possible attempt to thwart the D-day invasion. He parachutes into occupied France and, with the help of the French resistance, makes his way to Berlin. There, he is invited to a private club popular with the German high command, posing as a German baron and lover of a popular German film star who is part of the resistance.

With information provided by a French spy named Adam who tells him about an operation called “Iron Fist” he seeks out a German artist who assisted in the project, a chemical plant owner who makes deadly gas, and the man who assassinated his lover a few years prior.

Michael learns that the artist was hired to paint bullet holes on an aircraft. He also painted a caricature of Hitler on the plane, much in the style of American and British aviators paint the noses of their planes. He also learns that the Germans are developing a new, potent gas for an unknown purpose. Gallatin eventually puts it all together. The Germans plan to fly a plane disguised as a wounded American bomber to London where they plan to drop their horrible gas, killing the English in a most horrid way.

Before he can counter the Germans, he is captured and placed aboard a train by the man who murdered his lover in Libya. He is forced to run a deadly gauntlet of traps through the plane why the skilled hunter stalks him. Gallatin outwits him and escapes. He returns to Berlin and he and his fellow spies make their way to the remote island where the gas is being developed.

Once there, they launch an attack on the plant and are able to destroy it. But the shipment of gas has already departed, on its way to a Dutch airfield where it will be placed on the disguised bomber and delivered to London on the eve of D-Day.

The group travels to the remote airfield and confront the Nazis. The plane takes off and Michael and his friends pursue it in a German aircraft. An air battle ensues and Gallatin and his friends are able to eventually take down the aircraft and save London and the Allied invasion.

The Wolf’s Hour followed Swan Song in McCammon’s library and is a worthy successor. In Swan Song, McCammon perfected the art of creating memorable and unusual characters with Sister being one of the strongest characters I’ve ever read in genre fiction. Michael Gallatin is similarly strong.

Going into The Wolf’s Hour, I was anticipating a character who was torn apart and guilt-ridden over his duel existence. Instead, McCammon turned the cliché on its head.

McCammon’s werewolves are noble creatures who are persecuted and forced to live in isolation. They live and love as humans. They are educated and refined. The adult Michael Gallatin is far from guilt-ridden. He embraces who and what he is and uses it to his advantage. That is far removed from Larry Talbot and his tortured existence.

McCammon makes Gallatin into a Bond type superhero without allowing the trope to devolve into a foolish cliché. He sleeps with no less than four women in the novel. He reduces them all to putty in his hands. Along the way, McCammon shows us he has a real knack for writing effective erotica. Much like Bond, Gallatin escapes many impossible situations by outwitting his adversaries. The only thing Gallatin lacked was the Bond collection of fancy automobiles and gadgets.

The split narrative is employed effectively and enhances both timelines. Mikhail Gallatinov is developed as a young man of valor, honor and education and a wolf of cunning and great hunting skill. Michael Gallatin is developed as a loyal Englishman dedicated to helping win the war while also being the gallant hero seeking to avenge his murdered lover.

But The Wolf’s Hour is not a character study. It is a spy story blended with a horror novel, although the horror really plays a secondary role only used to enhance the spy story. Coming in at over 600 pages, the story seldom lags and the plot moves nicely. Like most McCammon books, the story relies on expansive geography, moving all over Europe. It does not quite rise to the level of splatterpunk a la Jack Ketchum, but McCammon shows he can be quite graphic in describing gore and violence.

The book’s one glaring weakness is at the end. The scene with Winston Churchill was just a tiny bit of overkill when the novel could have been effectively terminated several pages earlier. As a matter of personal taste, I like novels with short chapters. The Wolf’s Hour’s chapters were quite long. More frequent breaks are a better way to tell a long story.

The Wolf’s Hour was another step in the evolution of McCammon as a writer. In this book, he is moving away from the horror and supernatural genres into more mainstream writing. The Wolf’s Hour is primarily a spy novel. McCammon would continue to move in this direction with the publication of Mine, Boy’s Life, and Gone South.

The Wolf’s Hour does not quite achieve the epic status of Swan Song which is one of the finest pieces of genre fiction I’ve ever read. But it does stand as one of the top three books McCammon has written and is a fine and worthy entry into the werewolf subgenre, well worth reading for both horror and spy novel fans.

Stinger By Robert R. McCammon

Stinger
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1988

Inferno, Texas is a western Texas town on hard times and nearly dead. The copper mine has played out and people are leaving. The remaining inhabitants, already isolated by geography, are going to find themselves cut off from the rest of the world.

A small spaceship crashes in Inferno and its lone occupant takes possession of the body of a six year old girl. Little Stevie Hammond is now Daufin, an alien fugitive from a faraway planet.

Shortly after Daufin’s arrival, another ship arrives. It lands at a large automotive chop shop at the edge of town. Daufin tells the Hammonds and the military men who have arrived in Inferno that the ship is inhabited by Stinger, a bounty hunter from space pursuing her.

One night, a riot breaks out at a local arcade when the white gang and the Hispanic gang who war constantly in Inferno decide to fight. Stinger makes his presence known, destroying many of the buildings and houses in Inferno. He starts taking possession of many of the town’s inhabitants, asking about Daufin’s location. To keep his quarry from fleeing, Stinger places a force field around the town.

Daufin tells the people of Inferno that Stinger will take her and he and his race will return to take over Earth and imprison its residents. As various creatures move through Inferno, killing and destroying in pursuit of his quarry, Daufin, joined by Stevie’s parents, an Air Force Colonel, and the town drunk, use Stinger’s own underground tunnels to make their way to his ship where he controls his minions. Meanwhile, the leaders of the two warring gangs join forces to see to the safety of the town’s residents.

After capturing a couple Inferno residents, Stinger decides to return to his home planet with them as his bounty instead, promising to return to take over the planet. Daufin and her group race against time to get to the ship and destroy Stinger so that Daufin can return Stevie Hammond’s body to her and use the ship to get home.

I’ve seen it written in a couple reviews that the story contained in Stinger is very much like a B-movie. I wholeheartedly concur with this analysis. It has the charm of a B-movie with stereotypical – yet endearing characters. It has the simple, moralistic story of a B-movie. It has space aliens and the race against time to save humanity. The only thing missing is the grainy photography and the horrible audio.

The characters in Stinger are indeed one dimensional and each fits the stereotype of the roll they are supposed to play. The town drunk is a tragic figure who finds redemption. The gang leaders are actually intelligent, caring individuals who play the roles society has dictated for them. The Air Force Colonel is efficient and a natural leader. The sheriff is a fat coward. There is not one character in Stinger that is remarkable or outside the norm.

The plot is just as straight forward as one would expect from an 1:15 minute movie. There is the subplot of the gang rivalry and McCammon feints at other subplots such as the old widow whose husband has hidden a fortune somewhere in the town, the sinister chop shop owner who dominates the local economy, and a few others. But none are really developed and are woven in only to introduce peripheral characters.

With one dimensional characters and a one dimensional story, Stinger is still a charming novel. How? McCammon is a great storyteller. While coming in at almost 600 pages, it certainly could have been shorter. But McCammon keeps the action moving and, with the whole story unfolding over a 24 hour period, there are just a few slow moments. It moves just like a B-grade, 1950s sci-fi flick.

My chief criticism of Stinger is, McCammon did not take full advantage of the force field and the feeling of claustrophobia – than feeling of isolation – that is so effectively employed by great horror writers. Yes, the force field is there and McCammon provides a wonderful description of it. There is some action involving the force field when it first arrives. But McCammon never really uses it to create a mood of confinement. This would have added another dimension to the novel.

This was my first reading of Stinger since Stephen King published Under the Dome. McCammon is often compared to King – sometimes unfairly – by reviewers including me. When reviewing McCammon, the reviewer will often look to a comparable King work for comparison. In this instance, McCammon was first, but King did it better. King uses his dome to create that feeling of isolation and confinement. That is the prevailing theme in Under the Dome. I wish McCammon had given us just a little more of this mood.

Stinger is what I call a Gummy Bear novel. There’s not much there that is intellectually nutritious and you certainly would not want to confine yourself to a steady diet of books Like Stinger. But, every once in a while, when you find a tasty one, there’s no sin in indulging your literary sweet tooth and enjoying it for what it is. Stinger is a fun book.

Mystery Walk By Robert R. McCammon

Mystery Walk
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1983

The Mystery Walk, the voyage through life to determine your place and purpose, is something we all undertake. For Billy Creekmore, it is something more for he is gifted with the power to help distressed souls pass into the afterlife. He must learn how to use his gift.

Billy learns early in life that he is something special. A fire rips through the home of one of his friends when he is a young kid. He learns that his friend and his whole family were murdered by the father. Billy is drawn to the home to discover his friend’s body, secreted away under a coal pile in the basement. His friend’s soul begs him to let people know where he is.

Billy lives in rural Hawthorne, Alabama with his devoutly Christian father and a mother who is a Choctaw Indian. His mother and grandmother before him are gifted with this power and have found ways to use it. His father hates it and hates that his son has it. But, he loves his wife and son the best he can.

Billy will not be without adversaries on his Mystery Walk. There is Little Wayne Falconer, the son and heir apparent to the south’s most popular tent evangelist who hates the Creekmore’s and the powers he regards as evil. There is also a serpent-like apparition that haunts Billy and inspires others to evil – including the father of his friend who murdered his family.

Wayne Falconer has his own Mystery Walk to undertake. He is the same age as Billy and his father has brought him into his ministry. As a young child, Wayne brought back from death his beloved dog my laying hands on him. Convinced that his son has the healing gift, JJ Falconer takes Wayne on the road to heal the faithful.

But Wayne has his doubts. One evening the Falconer Crusade stops in Hawthorne and the Creekmore family attends. Billy and his mother see Little Wayne Falconer healing the sick. Billy and his mother notice the black clouds that portend death hover over the sick who approach Falconer and do not dissipate when Wayne “heals” them. Billy’s mother stands up and protests and the Creekmore family is thrown out of the revival. This is when the Creekmore family shows up on JJ Falconer’s radar and his need to destroy them develops.

The story then follows Billy and Wayne through their lives into their teens. Billy is called upon by the owner of a local saw mill to dispel the spirit of a man who died horribly in an accident with a saw. He does the task. But instead of earning the appreciation of the owner and community, Billy earns scorn and derision from the local Christians. Meanwhile, Wayne finds himself increasingly the star attraction of his father’s growing ministry.

Both desire something resembling a normal life and both make a single effort that shows how that will be impossible. Billy attends a high school dance at his local school where he is shunned. At a bonfire, someone has stuffed hundreds of fireworks in the stack of wood. It explodes and some kids are killed; others are badly injured. Billy, who is injured goes to the hospital where he and his family are shunned. The Falconers show up and are greeted with pleas from the parents to have Wayne heal their injured children. Ramona Creekmore intervenes and asks Wayne, “Son, do you even know what you’re doing?” The Creekmores are run out of the hospital.

Wayne attends a party one evening where teenagers are drinking and paryting. He meets a girl who is obviously desperate to have sex with him. Wayne battles between his natural lust and his acquired faith with his faith ultimately winning. When he spurns the girl, she gets upset and mocks him. He picks up a stick and strikes her in the head. She falls into the water and disappears.

One evening, shortly after the fireworks incident, things come to a head in Hawthorne for the Creekmores. The Ku Klux Klan – of whom Billy’s father is a member – shows up and tells John Creekmore that he is still welcome to stay in Hawthorne, but his wife and son would have to leave. A fight ensues and several Klansmen and Billy’s father are injured. The Klan flees.

But things will never be the same for the Creekmore family. John Creekmore has suffered brain injury and is mentally reduced. Income on their farm has all but ceased. Opportunity presents itself in the form of a carnival operator who offers Billy a job in his “Death Show.” He will pay Billy well and Billy will be able to send money home from the road.

Wayne’s life is also dramatically changed when his father suffers a heart attack and dies. Wayne, still in his teens, is now the head of a multi-million dollar television and multi-media evangelical operation. Unable to cope, he tries to heal his father’s death at the funeral home unsuccessfully. Later, he is visited by his father’s spirit (actually the serpent shape changer of Billy’s nightmares) who encourages Wayne to take calmative drugs and to take the advice of the men who helped JJ.

While out with the carnival, Billy encounters the shape shifter who has taken the shape of a dilapidated carnival ride that has injured many. A couple carnival workers are drawn irresistibly to this ride. One of them is the carnival’s snake handler who lusts for the women with whom Billy has fallen in love with. He tries to kill Billy’s girlfriend with a poisonous snake and is nearly successful. Billy finds the man and shoots him. He then finds the man who owns the mysterious ride and challenges him to a ride. Billy gets on and finds the souls of those injured and killed while riding it, setting them free, defeating the shape changer who leaves.

Billy returns home after his father dies. His mother encourages him to visit an institute in Chicago that investigates paranormal activity. Billy travels to Chicago and moves into the institute. After intensive study, the institute’s head says she believes Billy has powers, but that she cannot document them and therefore Billy is of no use to her. He must leave.

As Billy is preparing to leave, there is a horrible fire at a Chicago flop house that kills several residents. He travels to the worst part of Chicago’s south side to the hotel and invites the terrified souls still trapped in the hotel to come into him and set themselves free. As the ghosts rush at Billy, there is a television news crew nearby to capture the whole event on camera.

Meanwhile, Wayne has attracted the attention of a west coast gangster who a major germophobe who is an organized crime head. The man is eager to gain control of one of the ministry’s record studios. But it also wants to gain control of Wayne’s healing powers to help the hypochondriac mobster. Wayne’s daddy comes to him in his sleep and tells him he must trust help these people who will help Wayne build a new ministry in California and Mexico.

Wayne becomes quite comfortable living in the California mansion. Meanwhile, his associates are worried about the fate of the ministry that is suffering from inattention. One of Wayne’s associates leaves in disgust. The other is subjected to a test where his throat is cut and Wayne is forced to use his power to save him.

The mobster, now convinced that Wayne can keep him safe from disease and injury asks Wayne what it is he wants in exchange. Wayne says he wants the Creekmore woman and her son dead. Romona, now old and living alone, is taken out easily. But one day, one of JJ’s old associates brings to California with him Wayne’s mother who tells him that Wayne was not really JJ’s son. JJ was unable to sire a child of his own and purchased one from a man in Hawthorne. Billy knows that Wayne is that other boy.

Billy is kidnapped and taken to Mexico where he meets Wayne Falconer once again. While on a plane trip back from Mexico, the evil being takes over Wayne’s body and forces the plane to crash. Wayne, Billy, and the evil gangster survive. The evil shapeshifter takes over the gangster’s body and pursues them across the desert. They are able to escape it and the ultimate showdown between good, evil, and the misused finally convenes.
In another step in his maturity as a writer, McCammon takes on theology, modern religion and prejudice and a character with grey motives and ideas.

McCammon does an excellent job in developing his protagonist and antagonist early. We learn that Billy Creekmore is a good person with nothing more than a desire to do what his right with the gift he’s been provided. Wayne Falconer is confused about his self-discovery because he feels ill-used and is unsure of himself. McCammon sets these two characters up to be used by a stronger power in his evil machinations.

However, that never quite develops. While McCammon does quite well at taking the respective boys on their Mystery Walks and letting them discover things about themselves, the shapeshifter’s nature and motivations are never revealed. We know not why he desires to manipulate these two boys. We don’t even know who he is.

It would have been easy for McCammon to make Christianity itself the tool of evil. It would have also been cheap. McCammon doesn’t do that. The goodness of Christianity McCammon sees can be found in Billy’s father. Billy and Romona’s powers are repugnant to him as a Christian. But he never quits loving them and never quits supporting them. He is a weak man at times. But his faith never devolves into a tool of evil.

Wayne Falconer’s doubt also shows that it was not Christianity itself McCammon was putting on trial in this novel. Wayne is riddled with doubt about the faith healing he is supposed to be doing. He questions in his own mind his dad’s hatred for the Creekmores.

Billy and Wayne are presented as adversaries throughout the book while they are leading separate lives. McCammon gives us sufficient information to know how this rivalry developed and was perpetuated. He also gave us enough information as to why the two ought to come together to fight the evil shape changer. Unfortunately, that evil being was just too much of an enigma with seemingly no motivation other than to be the evil thing to be fought. Greater development of the shapechanger would have made this a much better book.

Robert McCammon’s prose alone make this an enjoyable book to read. McCammon can write phrases, sentences and paragraphs that grab the reader. He writes words that inspire the reader to want to read more. He is a gifted writer.

But when all the words have been read and the story is done, the reader is left feeling that he read a good story, but a story that could have been better had he put forth just a little more effort in defining the evil menace of his story.

They Thirst by Robert. R. McCammon

They Thirst
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1981

In his fourth book, McCammon takes all that he learned in writing his first three books to open up his writing horizons. They Thirst represents a giant leap forward in the scope of what McCammon was willing to take on as a writer. It’s also a pretty good book and, in 1981, was an original approach at the vampire trope.

The book opens in Hungary, many years ago, with a little boy forced to confront a father who has become a vampire. Years later, that little boy has immigrated to the United States and is Los Angeles Police detective Captain Andy Palatazin. Andy has a problem: a serial killer known in the media as “The Roach.”

While Andy is pursuing The Roach, Prince Vulkan – King of the Vampires – has also immigrated to Los Angeles. His plan: Take over the country’s largest city and make it his kingdom. He settles into an ancient Hollywood mansion that once belonged to Orion Kronsteen – a legendary horror actor and begins “recruiting.” Cemeteries are torn up and the caskets are stolen while remains are dumped on the ground. People begins disappearing all over the city.

As Andy pursues The Roach, he comes to face the unpleasant truth the monster who terrorized him and his village in Europe has come to the United States in search of a bigger realm. Only he knows the truth, but making others believe it, he knows, will only serve to make them think he has cracked under the pressure of the job.

As the vampire hoard grows, they descend upon the neighborhood of 10 year old Tommy Chandler. Tommy watches as the vampires slaughter his family and he barely escapes with his life. Alone in a city haunted by demons, Tommy swears revenge.

Wes Richer is a nationally famous stand-up comedian with a girlfriend gifted with second sight. She forewarns that evil is coming and they try to get out of the city while they still can. Trapped in their car in an unprecedented sandstorm, the vampires hunt them and take Wes’s beloved, leaving him to stagger aimlessly in the storm. He vows to find his girlfriend.

Father Silvera is a priest in one of the city’s Hispanic neighborhoods. He wars with drug dealers, preaches to gang members, and tends to his church – all while battling terminal cancer. As he comes to understand the evil that is gripping his neighborhood and his city, he decides that it is to be the exclamation point on his withering life to meet the King of the Vampires and end his reign. First, he tends to his parish and goes out into the storm to bring back groups of survivors to the sanctuary. While out on a run, he finds Wes wondering aimlessly. Together, they resolve to go to Kronsteen Castle and take on Prince Vulkan.

Father Silvera, paired with Wes and Andy Palatazin, paired with Tommy Chandler make their way toward Kronsteen Castle as the sandstorm paralyzes what’s left of the city. There, they confront the ancient Prince Vulkan and his human sidekick, The Roach in a classic battle of good and evil.

Today, the literary landscape is adrift in urban fantasy novels where heroes and heroines confront the classic monsters of the genre. When McCammon did it in 1981, it was an original take on the vampire. Stephen King had already hit with the vampire working in a New England village. But as much as ‘Salem’s Lot had intimacy in its setting, McCammon’s They Thirst had scope. And, while ‘Salem’s Lot is the superior of the two novels, They Thirst is a great deal of fun. That They Thirst and ‘Salem’s Lot be compared is inevitable because Stephen King and McCammon ploughed a lot of common ground in the 1980s.

What They Thirst has that ‘Salem’s Lot lacks is a claustrophobic feel of isolation. McCammon spends two thirds of the novel getting his characters where he needs them, then puts them in an unrelenting, deadly dust storm. McCammon wordsmiths it beautifully to develop that sense. It is on that level that They Thirst works best.

They Thirst does suffer a major weakness and that is in character development. McCammon spends a lot of words developing characters and plot lines that peter out early in the novel. Tommy Chandler – central to the novel’s climax and resolution – does not make his first appearance until more than halfway in. Wes Richter and Andy Palatazin are well developed and the reader comes to care about them and their fate. Father Silvera and Tommy Chandler felt like late insertions necessary to make the resolution work.

Prince Vulkan is a rather foolish sounding name and brings to mind immediately Mr. Spock. McCammon writes the character well at the climax, but it’s not until we get there that the reader really feels pervasive evil. McCammon hints and feints at it through the text. But Vulkan needed much, much more to be really menacing.

“The Roach” however, was a fantastic creature. He was a bit stereotypical – having mommy issues. But the serial killer raising roaches to stuff into his victims’ mouths was really cool.

They Thirst was a major development in McCammon’s writing career. In Baal, he told a rather linear story that relied primarily on two points of view. He stepped it up a bit in The Night Boat, writing from a few different points of view. In Bethany’s Sin, we saw him undertake more points of view and develop a culture and undercurrent of evil. When he got to They Thirst, he was ready to use many points of view and take on writing destruction on a massive scale. Wiping out major population centers in a book is easy to do badly and brilliant when done effectively. McCammon doesn’t take on too much of the L.A. landscape and leaves to the imagination what he doesn’t write.


They Thirst is the fourth – and final – of McCammon’s “Condemned Novels” that he pulled from publication for a time. He felt they were not up to snuff and reflected a writer learning his craft rather than mastering it. I’ve said before, Mr. McCammon is way too modest. All four are good novels. They Thirst is the best of the four and can stand with anything written in the genre in the 1980s.

They Thirst pays homage and respect to the traditional vampire, sticking with the tropes that make this classic character work. Transplanting this ancient evil that is at the wellspring of horror writing into the modern American city was brilliant and has been copied many times before. Kudos, Mr. McCammon, on a novel well written.

Bethany’s Sin By Robert R. McCammon

Bethany’s Sin
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1980

Bethany’s Sin, Pennsylvania – and idyllic small town with a strange name. This is where Vietnam veteran Evan Reid and his wife, Kay settle for Kay’s new teaching job. Evan is a freelance writer. Their five your old daughter, Laurie, will attend preschool in the village.

Evan is prone to have nightmares which he considers premonitions. He sees them as a symptom of post traumatic stress disorder caused by his experience in Vietnam as a prisoner of war. He does not discount his ability to foresee the future. He sees the family’s doom in Bethany’s Sin.

While grading papers at the community college where she teaches, Kay meets Dr. Kathryn Drago, a professor of history. Kay is entranced by the physically and psychologically dominating woman. She starts having nightmares of her own – nightmares where she is an ancient warrior delighting in the slaughter of her male enemies.

Evan notices that there are few males in town. Most of the men who live in Bethany’s Sin are disabled – supposedly by accident.

When the moon is new, something evil rides in Bethany’s Sin. The evil Kathryn Drago brought back from an archeological dig many years ago manifests itself in women riding on horseback, slaughtering men on the backroads of Pennsylvania. Dr. Drago sets her sights on Kay has her new recruit.

Evan has different ideas. Kay is admitted to the local clinic after supposedly having a mental breakdown and trying to kill Evan. There, she is kept in a drugged state until she can be initiated. Evan goes to war with the amazon women of Bethany’s Sin to save his wife’s life and soul.

My first thought upon reading Bethany’s Sin was, this is the antithesis of The Stepford Wives. In that Ira Levin classic, the men of Stepford, New York conspire to kill the women of their village and replace them with anatomically improved robots who are dutiful wives. In Bethany’s Sin, the women conspire to kill the men.

The motive is certainly different. The men of Stepford wanted “good” wives who cooked, cleaned, and were pretty. The women of Bethany’s Sin killed for the joy of killing.

The stark difference between Levin’s novel and McCammon’s is Levin’s was blatant social commentary on male backlash against the feminism of the 1970s. McCammon’s novel was just pure fun – and fun it was.

Bethany’s Sin seldom slowed down. The plot was paced nicely. However, the characters were not well developed and the introduction was over-written.

Many authors – particularly horror novelists – use a prologue to introduce an ancient horror that is going to be resurrected in their novel. John Saul is noteworthy in his use of a prologue. It is often effective. What is not effective is a double prologue which is what McCammon writes at the beginning of Bethany’s Sin.

The first introduces the ancient evil that invades (willingly or unwillingly is never made clear) Kathryn Drago’s soul at the archeological dig back in 1965. Here, McCammon’s writing at his best – hinting at what the malevolence will be in this novel. Great.

Then there is a second prologue where Evan is in a Vietcong POW camp about to be tortured. His torturer: a woman. Her device: a spider. The intent was to introduce Evan as a mentally flawed character who was a product of torture. But it came off as silly. Evan’s flaws could have been easily woven into the story. I felt like McCammon was a lazy here.

Evan and Kay had the feel of John Saul’s characters, developed just enough, but not deeply. We know that torture and trauma are the source of Evan’s dreams and his precognition. McCammon also describes a childhood incident with his brother. There two causes for Evan’s anguish and neither are developed sufficiently to make a rich character for whom the reader will root.

Better developed, but less important to the story, is the town handyman, Neely Ames. Ames had the feel of a Stephen King character. King fully develops even his secondary characters and Neely Ames, an innocent drifter employed by the village to be exploited, was rich and sympathetic.

What appeals to me the most about Bethany’s Sin is the setting. I love stories about “that strange, little town.” John Saul conjured many strange towns. Dean Koontz, too. When Stephen King destroyed Castle Rock in Needful Things, he felt he’d visited the strange little town too often and destroyed it lest he overdo it. But some of King’s most masterful work was set in Castle Rock and Derry.

To make a strange little town story work, the author must make it plausible that the underlying evil will not be noticed by the outside world. For everything that there is to like about the movie version of Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, one can not get past the fact that somebody would have noticed a Nebraska town missing before the bodies rotted. McCammon, however, makes Bethany’s Sin work. The sheriff is employed by Kathryn Drago to keep the outside world from prying into the affairs of Bethany’s Sin. It works – and if an author can pass the test of plausibility with his strange little town story, I’m in.

Bethany’s Sin was McCammon’s second book and for many years, he would not allow it to be reprinted. Later in his career, McCammon felt his first four novels were not up to par and that he was still learning the craft of writing. That is very true. But that does not mean they are not good and should not be appreciated for what they are. Bethany’s Sin is a good book. It has flaws – a couple major ones. But it works. It is a fun read. It is an easy read. Yes, he was learning and Bethany’s Sin does not measure when compared to his later work. But reading the “condemned novels” makes fans of Robert R. McCammon appreciate his later work for the great novels they are.

The Night Boat By Robert R. McCammon

The Night Boat
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1980

The Night Boat is one of his early novels (third published, second written) that Robert McCammon had pulled from publication later in his career. His claim was that his earlier novels (including Baal, Bethany’s Sin, and They Thirst) were him learning the craft of reading and did not reflect his best work.

This was a rash decision by McCammon. While These books are never going to compete with his great works like Swan Song and Speaks the Night Bird, they are not bad books. Some are better than others, but all are entertaining.

That said, The Night Boat is probably the least of these books.

Diver David Moore is diving on a Caribbean wreck when he spots a giant craft covered by sand on an underwater ledge off the coast of a small Caribbean island. He accidentally releases the derelict Nazi sub with an old depth charge, unleashing the undying fury of the evil inhabitants waiting in the depths.

The sub surfaces and is towed to a nearby shipyard where it is secured. David Moore and the island constable board her and see the horrible inhabitants come to life. Soon, the island is overrun by zombie Nazis with two goals: to feast on human flesh and to secure the supplies necessary to launch their sub and continue their mission to sink ships.

After slaughtering a number of island inhabitants, the zombies return to the shipyard where they install their new batteries, refuel their craft, and set sail for the shipping lanes.

One man, and old Carib who was injured in a Nazi attack on the island’s shipyard, vows revenge. He takes David Moore and a marine archeologist to see with him to stop the Nazis before they can resume their mission.

The Night Boat is entertaining reading with a plot that seldom lags. However, it suffers from a linear plot and lack of character development.

David Moore is developed adequately. We know his family drowned and he’s left New England and the banking system to operate a hotel in the Caribbean and forget his life. His backstory defines him and makes him a sympathetic character.

He’s the only one who gets any meaningful development.

Kip, the island constable, gets a little backstory. But he’s never made sympathetic. McCammon tries by revealing Kip’s fears and insecurities. That is usually a good device to develop a character. However, for Kip to be properly developed and emerge a true hero, he must offset those fears and insecurities with strong action. Kip ends up being a bystander to the climax.

A romance between Moore and the marine archeologist would have provided more heft to the climax when the couple are in danger. Instead, David is purely hands off, preferring to remember his dead family. The relationship between the man and woman thrown into the danger of being attacked by zombies and then pursuing a zombie Nazi sub in a brewing hurricane should have been more than platonic.

The man who emerges as the hero of the story – the old Carib – was a textbook example of ex deus machina. He did not emerge in the story until he was needed near the end. McCammon is a much better writer and that and could have come up with a way and reason for Kip or even Moore to emerge as the hero. Instead, McCammon invented a new character to serve as the tool of resolution.

Most importantly, McCammon never really develops his zombies. We know they are intelligent since they are able to repair their sub. We know they are evil since they are driven to destroy ships and life. We know that they are terrifying because they dine on human flesh. But, given their intelligence, the reader deserves to know something behind their motivation. Such development would have augmented their evil and the terror they created.

There was a lot to like about this story. McCammon really shows his horror chops in writing gore. None of the gore of the zombie attacks is gratuitous and all serves to show the cold hearted viciousness of these monsters. While not quite splatterpunk, the horror scenes are quite graphic.

McCammon develops his setting quite nicely. Most of us know the Caribbean islands as the tourist mecca with beautiful beaches and shops. McCammon reveals the real culture of the indigenous people of the Caribbean on an island where people work for a living. He develops their culture, their language and their superstitions to help drive his story.

The Night Boat was indeed a book by a writer still honing his craft. The book that followed (in order of writing) Bethany’s Sin, was much better in exploring motivations and character development. When he got to his fourth book, he was willing to take on horror on a large scale in They Thirst.

Despite being the work of a learning author, The Night Boat was fun. It was an original take on the zombie trope decades before zombies became the rage in horror. That alone would make it stand out if a more mature McCammon had written it today. The story works nicely and is an easy read.

McCammon has never written a bad book. A couple like The Night Boat and Mystery Walk stand as average, but not bad. The Night Boat is not a bad book, but might be McCammon’s most average.

Baal By Robert R. McCammon

Baal
By Robert R. McCammon
Copyright 1978

Baal was Robert R. McCammon’s first novel. It was very much a novel of its time and would launch a brilliant writing career that would span horror, dystopia, mainstream thrillers, and historical fiction.

Baal was born of a rape. Orphaned when his parents died when he was a small child, he moves to a Catholic orphanage. There, the boy who was Jeffery Harper Raines becomes Baal. Baal launches his reign of terror and proves that he is much more than a simple boy.

Years later, Baal sets up camp in the Kuwaiti desert. Followers, rich and poor, from all over the world are drawn to him. A researcher of religious cults disappears after embarking on a quest to learn more about Baal and his followers. His professor, Dr. Virga heads to Kuwait to investigate.

Virga arrives and is greeted by the cult of Baal. They are the lowest of the low in this Third World Country. They are also oil barons and the nation’s wealthy. They have coalesced around the enigmatic figure.

Virga finally gets his audience with Baal and finds his friend has gone insane and kills himself in a fit of despair. Baal tries to attack Virga, but is unable to because of the Christian Cross Baal wears around his neck. Virga is beaten and left for dead in the desert.

He is rescued by a man named Michael. Michael has a comfortable tent set up near Baal’s camp. Michael, too, is in pursuit of Baal for reasons he will not say.

Baal and his followers decamp from the scorched wastes of Kuwait and head for the frozen tundra of Greenland. Michael and Virga follow in pursuit. Michael and professor Virga land in Greenland. There, they find the wrath that Baal and his followers unleash on a remote village. They recruit a Sherpa named Zark to help them pursue Baal as he moves toward his next target.

They travel across some of the most inhospitable land on earth until they confront Baal and his followers. There, Zark and Virga learn Michael’s true nature as they wage a cosmic battle that will determine the future of mankind.

For a first book, Baal was pretty darn good. As I said, it was a novel of its time when spiritual thrillers such as The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen were selling big. Despite plowing heavily trod ground, McCammon is careful to make sure his novel is not derivative of any of those religious thrillers.

As with most first novel efforts, the plot is linear. There are no subplots in play. The story is the story and it progresses from point A to point B with no deviation.

Character development is weak as well. Professor Virga’s motivation isn’t fleshed out all too well. He’s enduring the most inhospitable climates in the world and risking his life. Yet, we never get the sense that he was all that close to his missing student. His motivations after seeing his student die are not developed at all. He’s a professor of theology, but he’s no religious fanatic. His desire to kill Baal is inexplicable.

Michael is get ambiguous deliberately to disguise his true nature. However, not too long after his arrival in the story, Michael’s nature is easily discerned.

Even with these weaknesses, the book was a fun, easy read. The story was paced nicely. There were no major holes and no moments of disbelief.

It was not quite as stellar as Stephen King’s opening book, Carrie. But McCammon’s first effort is no doubt a quality book. He would later pull Baal and three other novels from publication, claiming that they were not his best efforts and he was still learning his craft. He has since relented and allowed the books to be printed.

This is a good thing. Some of the early efforts are uneven at times. But each is like Baal in that it is a solid story that has a great plot and is fun to read.

Robert McCammon would hone his craft and write some truly excellent books like Swan Song, Mine, and Speaks the Nightbird. He explores different writing genres through his career and, unlike Stephen King and other recognized masters of horror, he’s never written a bad book. That is a remarkable career accomplishment.