Blood like mine

Neville leaves behind Northern Ireland (The House of Ashes, 2021) to explore the American Southwest with a riveting road trip into horror fiction. The story follows the paths of two tortured souls, a single mom and an FBI cybercrime specialist. Rebecca Carter and her daughter, Moonflower, have been on the road for 15 years, and she constantly scans the news to see if someone may have reported seeing them. Special Agent Marc Donner has been obsessively tracking a serial killer for two years, and when the body of a registered sex offender is discovered outside of Golden, Colorado, he flies in from DC to investigate. When he learns a woman driving a van was seen near the body's location, Donner believes he may finally be close to resolving the case and confronting the killer. Interspersed throughout the narrative are pieces of evidence, including newspaper articles and official interview transcripts. The most telling are letters from Rebecca addressed to Moonflower, starting from when she was pregnant and following through the years up to the present day. More than just motherly devotion is involved. The straightforward writing style enhances both the suspense and the depth of character development. Horror fans will be entranced.

Neville (The House of Ashes) gives the serial killer thriller a novel spin in this riveting splice of crime and weird fiction. FBI agent Marc Donner is a cybercrime specialist skilled at drawing out pedophiles and groomers by posing as vulnerable young people on social media. When some of his predator quarry turn up murdered with their throats slashed and their spinal cords severed, Marc speculates it's the work of a serial killer--and he's right. In a parallel story line, Rebecca Carter and her 12-year-old daughter employ the same sorts of online trickery to lure their victims as they cut a bloody swath from Wisconsin to Arizona. After tantalizing the reader with the prospect that the mother-daughter duo are female Dexters, Neville torques his tale fully into uncanny territory with a spectacular confrontation between Donner and the pair that propels his plot into the realm of the supernatural. The chapters toggle between Marc's and Rebecca's perspectives, sustaining breathless suspense as the story builds to its wild and cinematic finale. This is a satisfying exercise in high-voltage horror. (Aug.)