Reaping By Numbers: A Dead-End Job by Nicole Givens Kurtz; Fun and Interesting Take on The Grim Reaper

 Reaping By Numbers: A Dead-End Job by Nicole Givens Kurtz; Fun and Interesting Take on The Grim Reaper 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Nicole Givens Kurtz knows how to write mysteries set in unique settings or populated with unique characters. Her novel, Glitches and Stitches is set in the future where AI is so omnipresent that people have a hard time separating the orga from the mecha which complicates a murder investigation. Kill Three Birds is a murder mystery set in a world of anthropomorphic birds. Her latest Reaping By Numbers also has an interesting premise in which a murder is investigated by none other than the Grim Reaper, well a Grim Reaper anyway.

Note, I said a Grim Reaper, as in plural more than one. Kurtz’s take on Reapers is that it is a job like any other. They are mostly human but are led by demons who work for the original Grim Reaper, also known as G. They don't kill people or cause them to die so much as they are there at the point of death and escort them in the transition between life and lifelessness. 

Patrice Williams is one such Reaper. Her reaping skills come naturally because they are inherited from her father who was an excellent Reaper in his day. Her latest assignment puts her right in the middle of a murder investigation, a turf war between various demonic factions, a meddlesome angel, and demonic possession. Patrice has to use all of her skills particularly when her own family is involved, especially her niece, Brianna, whose body inadvertently becomes the vessel of a very angry and violent demon.

In a strange way, Reaping By Numbers is the complete opposite of my previous book, Secrets at The Aviary Inn by Maryann Clarke. Secrets explores an ordinary conflict of a woman researching her family history but gives it some enchanting touches in setting and character that almost makes it seem like a Contemporary Fantasy. Reaping By Numbers takes an otherworldly fantastic situation of reapers guiding people after death and finds a dark humor by exploring the ordinary mundanity of the situation. 

Patrice clocks in and out like everyone else, does her shift, takes her breaks, deals with co-workers and supervisors, some encouraging and others obnoxious, collects her earnings, and goes home. Okay she's dealing with the recently deceased but so do morgue attendants and funeral home workers. What's so strange about that? Alright, her bosses are demons that emerged from the darkest pits of Hell but aren't all of our bosses? Yes, she has to face some very unpleasant encounters with dark magic, soul sucking spirits, wrathful ghosts, and avenging angels but no job is perfect. The benefits are great, particularly when you are alive to enjoy them. 

The way that her family is portrayed is that of a loving supportive foundation but are divided on various issues. Patrice's father is proud that his daughter is following in his footsteps. He is very encouraging as they talk shop though he also sternly warns her about some of the more dangerous aspects of the job. 

Not all of her family is supportive, particularly her religious mother and intrusive sister. Her mother is concerned that her daughter is consorting with demons. Her sister is trying to live a normal life with her pastor husband and children and feels that Patrice's profession could bring unwanted trouble within their family circle. Her worst fears come true when her daughter is possessed by demons.

Brianna's possession is a central plot point in this book. Kurtz conveys the anguish and fear that her family has, particularly Patrice who has to actively remove the demon while dealing with her own guilt and uncertainty about her chosen path. Patrice's dialogue with Brianna is the strongest emotional core especially when the young girl shows some potential to be a Reaper herself. 

Reaping By Numbers conveys a lot of dark humor but a lot of emotions in this book about a woman who considers hanging out with the dead as just another day at work.

New Book Alert: Behind The Veil by E.J. Dawson; Sinister and Spooky Supernatural Horror Straddles Between Madness and Sanity

 

New Book Alert: Behind The Veil by E.J. Dawson; Sinister and Spooky Supernatural Horror Straddles Between Madness and Sanity

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: E.J. Dawson's Behind The Veil is among the best Horror novels that I read this year. It is a genuinely terrifying account of both paranormal and real life fear with a protagonist who hovers between frightening visions and her own fears which could develop into paranoia and insanity

Letitia Hawking is a 1920's widow who emigrated from her native Britain to California. She is trying to bury the grief of losing her husband, a miscarriage, and a traumatic encounter with a Spiritualist that left her scarred and institutionalized. 

Since Letitia herself has ghostly visions and Spiritualism is on the rise, Letitia offers herself as a medium who is able to peer into the deceased's last days.

Her visions are both sad and eerie as she sees how a person died and their final thoughts. The book begins with her seeing a sickly man who is grateful to die so he can get away from his loveless marriage but worried about how his wife will treat their child and his mother now that he is gone.

 Letitia's visions are complex as she sees deep sadness, frustration, anger, fear, and sometimes relief to get away from the cruelty of the world around them. Many of her clients are grateful to hear the loving final thoughts of their friend or family member. Some are in denial that their behavior was a contributing factor to the deceased's decline and death, as a very stern father is when he sees the final memories of the troubled son whom he threw out.

However, because of the emotions connected with natural death alone and her own trauma, Letitia is reluctant to take on cases where someone was murdered. She fears that she may lose her own mind in the recall of a violent act or that experiencing the trauma second hand may end up killing her.

Besides her frightening second sight that stalks her, Letitia also has to contend with more human persistence. She is constantly followed by the very wealthy Alasdair Driscoll who uses threats and intimidation to take on a personal case for him. At first, Letitia refuses citing previous commitments and her own concerns about what he wants her to do. She also sees a dark presence surrounding him, one that forms a barrier trying to keep Letitia away.

But finally moved by the pleading of his sister, Mrs. Imogen Quinn, Letitia agrees to help him. She meets Quinn's daughter and Driscoll's niece, Finola and sees the real reason for their interest in her. Finola is alive but like Letitia she is gifted or rather cursed with second sight supernatural abilities. And as they did for Letitia when she was younger, Finola's visions are harrowing and threaten to eat away at her sanity.

Behind the Veil is scary for the supernatural and human haunting that surrounds the novel. The horrors that Letitia sees through Finola's eyes become more troubling for her. It's similar to someone becoming blinded by seeing something twice as bright or losing their hearing because a stereo system is cranked way too loud. Letitia and Finola's visions become worse because they are shared between them. When she goes inside Finola's head, Letitia sees spectral images of murder,violence, sexual assault, and pedophilia. She particularly sees a crime affecting several young girls that until now was left unsolved. Letitia continues to see the dark spectral presence becoming larger and more powerful. 

 Because of these dangerous thoughts, Finola is left alone in her room unable to socialize for fear that she may lash out violently. Driscoll and Quinn are so anxious about their young relative, that they are considering putting her away in an asylum.

The more Letitia probes into Finola's mind, the more that she sees echoes of her own past. She too was institutionalized by people who didn't understand her abilities. She even doubted them herself. The passages describing Letitia's time in the asylum are actually more horrifying than her supernatural premonitions. While in the asylum, Letitia was subjected to the ice cold bath treatment, early versions of shock therapy, neglect and abuse from employees, and isolation. What is more frightening is that her memories are not the results of some dark unexplained presence. They are the results of those who were all too human, a system that puts the mentally ill away to forget about them rather than helping them or discovering why their minds are the way they are. It's no wonder why Letitia becomes protective of Finola. She doesn't want her to suffer the same fate that she did.

Behind the Veil is a sinister novel that asks the question about which is scarier: the supernatural world that exists beyond human consciousness and is only experienced by the very few or the real world that surrounds and haunts us every day.

 

New Book Alert: The Caller: A Demon Within by Jeanie Creviston; Strong Suspenseful Beginning Cannot Make Up For Overstuffed Ending

New Book Alert: The Caller: A Demon Within by Jeanie Creviston; Strong Suspenseful Beginning Cannot Make Up For Overstuffed Ending

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews



Spoilers: As disappointed as I get with books that start badly and stay that way, I am even more so with books that start well but have bad endings. They have so much promise going in that it becomes an even worse disappointment when they fizzle out before the words "The End" appear.


Take Jeanie Creviston's thriller The Caller: A Demon Within. It starts out as an excellent psychological thriller using points of view from the serial killer, the victim, and the law enforcement officer. Then it becomes overstuffed with demonic possession and one too many false leads that confuse the Reader and leaves the plot going in too many directions.


The book focuses on Tom Biddle, a New Jersey cop, who is one of the many police officers searching for a rapist/serial killer. They arrest a potential suspect, David Hernandez who manipulates a fight between the officers and himself. Trying to break up the fight, Tom accidentally drops a photograph of his former fiancee, Sydnie. David is instantly drawn to the woman in the photo and when he manages to get released from custody, he heads over to Indiana where Sydnie now lives with her husband and daughters.


The Caller starts strong with an intriguing chase. The alternating points of view are solid. David is a very spine tingling antagonist of the Hannibal Lector variety. He is able to control the situation with icy mind games and extraordinary persistence. In one passage, he manipulates a fellow prisoner to confessing to the murders and then committing suicide.

He also has a predatory instinct on how to circle his chosen prey before he loses control and kills them. He tracks a chiropractor by pretending to be a patient, then trails her to her place before going in for the literal kill. He is someone who believes that because of his intelligence and process in capturing his victims that he can never be caught.


Tom by contrast is not as self-assured and much more flawed. It was a mistake to leave a photograph in the presence of a potential assailant, one that he rues throughout the rest of the book. As compared to his toxic masculine father, Tom is a more sensitive sort. He is clearly protective towards the victims, particularly Sydnie. Even though, he parted ways with her, he is still in love with her and so concerned about her welfare that he crosses state lines to save her life.


The other interesting aspect to the novel is how it deals with Sydnie. She is a strong willed woman who is deeply in love with her husband, Ed, and involved in her daughter's lives. She is the type of person that you can't imagine bad things happening to. It becomes terrifying when she starts getting frightening calls from New Jersey and the calls get closer and closer to where she lives.

While Sydnie is the target, she is also very protective of her home and family. So much so that she is able to take on her stalker with assistance from friends and family and minimal help from Tom (In a refreshing twist on the whole " male cop saves female victim" trope, Tom isn't even there during the final confrontation, leaving Sydnie to move center stage as the hero in the story.)

Sydnie is also psychic which gives her the advantage to know that danger is coming. She is also able to get flashes into David's psyche to see the once abused child and learn how he became a killer.


Sydnie's psychic abilities aren't the only supernatural aspects to the novel and that's where the problems lay. What started out as a realistic psychological thriller becomes disjointed when it is revealed that a demonic presence is around. There is very little foreshadowing of that beforehand and the little that there is could have been attributed to David's unstable mind and thought process. The demonic presence ends up taking over the plot and turns what could be a tight action suspenseful climax into a supernatural battle of good vs. evil out of nowhere.


Creviston did such a good job at capturing a psychological thriller that when the book veers towards the supernatural, it becomes jarring.The Caller could have easily remained a normal psychological thriller and have been better for it or the supernatural aspects could have been a part of the story earlier on.

It's almost like Creviston had one idea then halfway through had another idea. So she went with that and combined the two rather than altering the beginning to make the idea flow more naturally.


Even Sydnie's psychic abilities could have remained on a more subtle scale in anticipating danger before it occurs and for her to learn how this criminal was made. But it cheapens all of the character development that the main characters-particularly David and Sydnie- to follow the whole demonic possession angle. Instead of understanding how the characters's choices and upbringing lead them to this behavior, we are told that they have been influenced by angelic and demonic forces and have no real control over the actions. If that was true then what was the point of all of that early character development to turn into a red herring?


Speaking of red herrings, the ending has too many implausible ones at the end. It might be understandable for there to be another stalker going after Sydnie's family, but more than likely they would be a partner or co-hort of David's rather than a separate person with their own agenda. Especially since there were no early signs that this character would do such a thing nor how they were able to come upon the scene at the exact moment when David was also stalking them. At the very least, the two could have worked together combining their plots rather than being separated.



Also, a love triangle begins to develop in the final chapters when one didn't exist beforehand. When this happens, the characters act so bizarrely and uncharacteristically childish that this Reader was tempted to say "Dudes, you're lives are in danger! Get some perspective!"

Then there is the thrown in conclusion meant to tell us in the best horror movie fashion that the fight isn't over.


The Caller has some good things going for it particularly with strong character development between the protagonists and antagonist as a mental chess game between equal opponents. But the flaws make this novel a definite wrong number.