After a solid two weeks of reading a string of novels that were less than solid, I started to doubt whether I found reading pleasurable anymore. Thankfully, Ed Gorman’s BLACK RIVER FALLS restored my faith.
Now, you could call it a conflict of interest for me to praise a book by Gorman now that the man himself has been contributing a column to this very site, but I’ll be perfectly honest with you: If I ever read something of his that sucks, I’ll say so; it’s just I haven’t come close yet.
Set in the small town of the title, this 1996 thriller concerns two brothers who couldn’t be more different: Michael is the good-looking, popular, former star athlete to whom women flock; Ben is the somewhat-gawky, self-described “dweeb” whose hobbies entail the library and watching sci-fi movies. Somehow – and this is never explained satisfactorily – the 19-year-old Ben lands a beautiful girlfriend named Alison. Though her affection is genuine, the self-defeating Ben is forever worried that someone will swoop down and take her from him. And he’s right.
Something happens at the end of Act II that made me mad at BLACK RIVER FALLS, although I understand it had to happen in order to kick the Cain-and-Abel element into high gear. Surely suspenseful, this novel has every bit the intensity of a Dean Koontz thriller (pun not intended … on second thought, yeah, totally intended), to where I fought sleep as long as I could in an effort to finish it all in one night. –Rod Lott
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OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THESE AUTHORS:
• THE ADVENTURE OF THE MISSING DETECTIVE AND 19 OF THE YEAR’S FINEST CRIME AND MYSTERY STORIES edited by by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg
• DEAN KOONTZ’S FRANKENSTEIN: BOOK TWO – CITY OF NIGHT by Dean Koontz and Ed Gorman
• DIFFERENT KINDS OF DEAD AND OTHER TALES by Ed Gorman
• GHOST TOWN by Ed Gorman
• GRAVES’ RETREAT by Ed Gorman
• GUNSLINGER AND NINE OTHER ACTION-PACKED STORIES OF THE WILD WEST by Ed Gorman
• INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS: A TRIBUTE edited by Kevin McCarthy and Ed Gorman
• WOLF MOON by Ed Gorman
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