Where The Sweet Vines Grow by Sadie Sloan; Ominous and Plutonian Psychological Thriller Features Teen Victims and Their Perpetrators

 

Where The Sweet Vines Grow by Sadie Sloan; Ominous and Plutonian Psychological Thriller Features Teen Victims and Their Perpetrators 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: There is something more genuinely threatening in a Psychological Thriller when the victims are kids and teenagers than when they are adults.

There is always a terrifying edge when such a book goes into the mind of an assailant and their traumatized victim. Many characters and readers wonder why this happened and what in their youth could have happened that created this situation. Somehow the wondering becomes sharper when this situation happens to a young character who hasn't even reached their twenties.

 That is what happens in Where The Sweet Vines Grow, Sadie Sloan’s ominous and plutonian psychological thriller about a series of kidnapped teen girls, the perpetrators behind the abductions, and the trauma that is inflicted.

Willow Alves moves from her mother's home to her father's dairy farm in Modesto. She is introduced to Julian and Roman Sullivan, heirs to the Sweet Vine Winery and the wealthiest family in the area. She is attracted to the charming Roman Sullivan who has had an active love life. While out on a date with Roman, Willow becomes the victim of a serious crime. 

The book pulls no punches in describing how a young girl can be made vulnerable by the manipulations and intentions of those around her. The conflict between Willow and her perpetrators are that of appearance and reality, deception and truth, maturity and innocence, predator and victim. It's also a metaphor of the conflicts between men and women and how they are shaped by the society around them. 

The teen years are a time of experimentation and raw emotions because brains haven't fully developed. That doesn't occur until they reach their early twenties. This is among the many reasons that 18 and 21 are considered the legal adult age.

 They are hormonal, emotional, argumentative, surly, vulnerable, arrogant, self-centered, immature and hopelessly naive. This age span makes them easily susceptible to manipulative tactics that predators use. The tactics could be used to turn them into predators, prey, or both.

Willow is an example of such a teen. She has had a difficult home life: divorced parents, an alcoholic mother abdicating responsibility, and a loving but distant and overwhelmed father. She also had a previous relationship with a 22 year old at age 16, so her history of toxic relationships is apparent. She is the type of kid who is stressed and looking to belong and be accepted. 

Willow makes some new friends like Craig, a nice guy who flirts with her but accepts the friend zone and Tangy, a saucy mouthy girl who has her own reasons for disliking the Sullivans. Willow feels safe around them but she is drawn to Roman Sullivan.

Roman is charming, charismatic, and the typical popular rich athletic kid. He is somewhat full of himself but is the type of guy that girls can't resist. He has had several girlfriends in the past and while that is a source of gossip, no one pays much attention to his love life.

There is the difference between Willow and Roman that is found all over the book. Willow had one previous relationship when she was certainly too young to weigh options to give serious informed consent. This aftermath leads to a rupture in her family and separation. It becomes part of her identity and is the source of gossip at her new home and school.

Roman however has had several romances, some with girls who no longer live in Modesto. Something serious must have happened to them since they are no longer here to defend themselves. While he is considered suspicious particularly by Tangie and Willow's father, nothing happens to him except the occasional rumor and gossip.

 In fact, Roman’s reputation makes him more alluring while Willow’s wards people off. Willow and Roman’s reputations are microcosms of how men can get away with being open about their sexuality but women are held under scrutiny if they are not as pure as the driven snow.

One of the eeriest things that occur throughout the book is that Willow is left unprepared when she is a victim of a serious crime. She is told what to wear, how to behave, not to drink too much, not to be too open, not to reveal too much, and who to stay away from. The type of advice that many women are told and then victim blamed for if they are attacked.

What this advice fails to recognize is that many perpetrators don't need or require such patterns to attack. If they want someone, they will take them. It won't matter what their victims wear or how they behave. If the perpetrator is skilled just like in this book, they will find a way in. Also as long as the victim is blamed for their behavior, the perpetrator or perpetrators will find other means to capture them and probably get away with it too.

The book has some interesting twists that challenge the perceptions in this book over who is guilty and who is innocent, how involved  people are in crime, what is often condemned and what is ignored. The final chapters make some chilling observations.

If these crimes continue with other faces and other names without condemnation is the whole system corrupt and complicit in allowing them to continue? Are our perceptions of males and females to blame in creating predators and prey and are they shaped by the exposure towards those perceptions in our youth? 

Dissolved (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 2) by Anna Madorsky; Semi-Return to Normalcy-Maybe

Dissolved (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 2) by Anna Madorsky; Semi-Return to Normalcy-Maybe

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

This review is also on Reedsy Discovery.

Spoilers: Since this review is for the second volume in a trilogy, I advise you to read my review for the first volume, Gutted and be forewarned that this review will contain MAJOR SPOILERS!!

 In Gutted, the first volume of Anna Madorsky’s Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy, Elliot, a woman troubled by PTSD and frequent insomnia, meets Jason, a highly intelligent, temperamental stranger who shares many of her philosophical Nihilistic thoughts. The two become lovers and kindred spirits before Jason reveals that in moments of fury, he killed people in the past and still has the urge to kill again. Elliot is at first frightened but then is drawn to his aggressive energy and open contempt for people around them. They marry and she becomes complicit and eventually partners with him when he goes in for his latest kill: a man who brutally kidnapped, raped, and murdered her friend Abbie. Elliot helps Jason cover up the crime but their relationship has been significantly altered so she decides to take a break from their marriage. She won’t notify anyone but she can’t be with Jason right now. She leaves him to find a different life for herself.

Dissolved, the second volume is mostly about her time alone. If Gutted was a journey of Elliot discovering the dark side within herself and Jason and taking those dark sides to frightening levels, then Dissolved is about the opposite. It involves Elliot trying desperately to return to normalcy or perhaps embracing it for the first time.

To maintain distance between herself and Jason, Elliot offers to house-sit for Oluchi, friend of a friend in Portland. In this new location, she makes new friends and becomes a different person. Unfortunately, she can’t stay away from Jason for too long and the two reunite. Their reunion brings back their actions and unresolved conflicts and Elliot has to either leave Jason to his own devices or return to their “Bonnie-and-Clyde” escapades.

In the previous book, Elliot lived in a cloak of darkness. She was still scarred with the traumas of her past and her mind was fogged from sleepless nights and damaging memories. She became easily susceptible to Jason’s manipulations, intellectual rhetoric, and pressing dark souled charisma. 

She thought that she found someone who shared her pessimistic views of the world until he revealed that he had been purposely stalking her. What he needed was a partner to share and facilitate these dark urges to commit murder. She was an outsider to everyone but to Jason and began to embrace a complete isolation from the world and a detachment to its laws and standards.

Dissolved is about the same woman trying her damned best to join that world that she once felt isolated from. Elliot invigorates her friendships by becoming more involved in their issues. In the previous book, she displayed some empathy for a coworker having trouble with her aging mother, and a couple of friends that are having marital problems. Most prominently, her concern for Abbie is what motivates her and Jason's rage and desire for murder. But her interactions with them conveyed world weary detachment as though she viewed them through thick glass, observing and feeling but up to a point.

However, she blossoms in Portland. She bonds with Oluchi enough to give her some information about her marriage (though not all of it). An elderly neighbor, Josephine treats her like a surrogate daughter. Rav and Yesenia, a fighting married couple, are put into her confidence.

Rav and Yesenia’s subplot proves an interesting contrast to Elliot and Jason. Rav and Yesenia's fights are loud, emotional, and almost darkly comic like a realistic sitcom with a hard edge. In other words, they are the type of couple that Elliot and Jason tried to avoid becoming. Rav and Yesenia's marriage conflicts are all outward while Elliot's and Jason's are inward.

Also Rav proves to be a contrast to Elliot herself especially when Jason returns. Just as Elliot sees Jason as a means to share her trauma and her grief, Rav sees them as a means to reflect his own aggressions and irritations. He is drawn to their shadow presence as much as Elliot had been to Jason. Looking at it now from the outside, she recognizes the harm and toxicity to the relationship but also is aware of her own longing for Jason's presence once more even as she tries to reject him.

Elliot also has a potential second love interest in Caspian, a bookseller. It isn't quite a romance but it is a deep respectful friendship. Caspian is an alternative to Jason. Like Jason he is highly intelligent, speaks of philosophical, metaphysical, and literary concepts, and causes Elliot to look inward. However he does so in a more positive way that seeks to better her not pull her down to a lower level as Jason does.

Normally, I don't care for love triangles but this is one that actually kind of works because of what Jason and Caspian represent to Elliot. Jason opened up her outsider status and encouraged her to acknowledge her darker angrier side, the side that had been hurt, hates the world, and wants to pass that hurt along to someone else.

Caspian wants to encourage Elliot's softer, more empathetic side, the type that wants to be loved and surrounded by loving, understanding people. Elliot opens up to share her thoughts about poetry, literature, and finding creative means to express her emotions. Caspian gives her possibilities to see past that hurt and find a way to move on from it. He opens up the insider status and the desire to belong and be accepted

Another way that Elliot expresses the desire to belong is through her family. In the previous book, Elliot was abused by or estranged from her immediate family. She was left isolated without anyone close to her, no positive examples to learn from leaving her alone and vulnerable.

Now she learns that her father died and she makes an attempt to reconcile with her mother who lives in Australia with her younger brothers. Elliot recognizes her own wasted effort at a reunion when the woman turns her back on her daughter while justifying choosing her sons over her. 

Instead Elliot actually does discover a found family in her Aunt Ava, her father's sister. She runs a New Age shop, reads Tarot Cards, and gives Elliot maternal advice about love and relationships. She is the older feminine guide that Elliot needed all along. It's particularly intriguing that she finds this familial link while separated from Jason. Without Jason her circle has widened but with him, it was severely limited.

You will notice in my review that I don't refer to Elliot and Jason's romance much but refer to other characters. That's because Jason isn't in it as much as the others. In his frequent absence from the narrative, other characters take prominent roles in Elliot’s life. She seems to be doing alright without him. For a time.

When Jason returns, Elliot realizes how much she missed that intense passion between them and their unique relationship in a world of two. She also is more suspicious of him and receives non-answers when she asks if he killed anyone else since they have been apart. She wonders if her presence was able to satisfy his bloodlust or at least redirect it to people who they felt deserved to die like abusers and rapists.

She is torn between the man that proved to be a dangerous killer and the man that she feels understands her the most. Even though she worked very hard at improving herself since their separation, she still has traces of that sad, mentally scarred, traumatized young woman that Jason met. The more she tries to deny their connection, the harder that it is to resist him.

Gutted revealed that Elliot was figuratively cut open when Jason explored her vulnerabilities. Dissolved reveals the tug of war between Elliot's personas: law or lawlessness, inner peace or outward violence, belonging or isolation, love or loneliness, society or outsider, burying her painful past or letting it consume her, being a decent person helping others or a violent criminal creating someone else's pain. Eventually, one or the other persona is going to have to dissolve, leaving only one. 

 

Gutted (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 1) by Anna Madorsky; Troubling Relationship Turns Destructive and Toxic

 

Gutted (Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy Book 1) by Anna Madorsky; Troubling Relationship Turns Destructive and Toxic

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Even if the introduction of Anna Madorsky’s book, Gutted, the first book in her Gutted, Dissolved, and Then Finished Trilogy, doesn’t outright spell out what happens to the central couple the first few chapters alone carry an initial feeling of unease that this couple is not going to be a happy one. This feeling only grows long before we learn about the violent history that haunts them in the past and the impulses that still rule their lives.

Elliot, a frequent insomniac, heads for a cafe in the rain in a desperate attempt to find something to soothe her. On the way there, she meets Jason, a mesmerizing stranger who asks probing and philosophical questions and understands the dark aspects luring inside her subconscious. The two become close and more intimate while Jason hints at some disturbing impulses and mannerisms.

 Finally, in a candid moment, Jason reveals his history of violence, darker urges and impulses which consume him, and that he still has those urges even now. Elliot is left with a moral quandary. Should she turn a blind eye to his behavior, help him no matter how far his urges take him, or leave him, inform the police, and regain her life?

The overall tone of this book is bleak. Both Elliot and Jason are disturbing characters caught in their own shadow natures and emotions particularly trauma, depression, anger, violence, hatred, and depersonalization. 

This is a couple that is practically destined to be a killer couple long before the first victim is identified and the body is laid out. Separately, they are miserable and insulated. Together, they are destructive towards others and themselves.

Their first encounter in hindsight is a lesson in subtle manipulation, control, and dominance. Elliot’s thought process is incredibly askew because of her insomnia and her early traumatic home life which causes her to withdraw into herself. She is very susceptible to Jason’s influence which he later revealed was among the reasons that he purposely sought her out.

Jason captivates her by echoing many of her own thoughts about the world around her. He offers his own Nihilistic views which she resonates with. She sees a partner in their mutual dark views of the world around them and who turns those thoughts into a distorted logic. If they have been hurt by a cruel and unfeeling world around them, can anyone blame them for seeing nothingness everywhere they go and thinking that life is completely pointless?

 If life is pointless, then there is no reason to honor laws, ethics, morals and other barriers. Jason rewords and reframes these views so Elliot thinks that she thought of them herself. She then thinks that Jason is a kindred spirit when all he is is a pathway to further isolation.

Elliot feels detached from everyone except for Jason. A chapter that illustrates this is when she and Jason have dinner with her close friends. Elliot’s friends’ marriage is happy. They are well adjusted with their house, careers, and dog. These are goals many aspire towards, but Elliot cannot help but think that it’s a phony surface. 

Elliot is shut out from achieving such a life, so she doesn’t bother to hope for them. Instead of wanting what she can’t have, she finds the flaws within and magnifies them until they turn into the whole picture. Instead of trying to move beyond her status, she remains detached, depersonalized, and immobile. Miserably unhappy but unable or unwilling to act upon it until Jason enters her orbit.

While Elliot simmers in her thoughts and unhappiness, Jason is the one who brings them to the surface. He is the agent of chaos that does the things that Elliot dreams of doing but is hampered by her own inertia. 

Jason reveals a dark past in which he was forced to respond to violence with violence. Instead of feeling remorse or justification, the violence became an obsession and fixation. It is an itch that he can't scratch so satisfies it by hurting others.

Jason likens his violent actions to an urge that when he sees someone that angers him, he needs to satiate that obsession with blood and murder. For someone who speaks so well about philosophy and metaphysical concepts, he cannot articulate his murderous impulses until Elliot rationalizes them.

 As he reframed her dark thoughts, she reframes his random acts and urges into a means of self-protection and defense. As Elliot is controlled by Jason, Jason is controlled by these urges. Elliot’s own inert thoughts are given movement by Jason and Jason’s acts of violence are given rationale by Elliot.

The violent acts occur in the final chapters and are almost cathartic after the build up provided by these two disturbed individuals. It is bloody, brutal, and purposely grotesque. For all of the depth in characterization that is given to the two lead characters, when we see them acting out their violent fantasies their mystique and control disappear.

 They no longer see each other as mutual lost souls drifting along in an uncaring world. They see partners and instigators in escalating the chaos and violence that contributed to that uncaring world. 

The North Sea Killer by Dale E. Manolakas; The Mantis Corruption The Mantis Gland Series Book 3 by Adam Andrews Johnson

 The North Sea Killer by Dale E Manolakas 

Dale E. Manolakas’ The North Sea Killer is a short but tight thriller about a rich aristocrat with a very dangerous side. 

Edward Kenworthy is the second son of the Duke of Belford, a prominent British family. Besides being a wealthy playboy, he is a serial killer and his latest conquest is Chloe Bridgeport, an American senator’s daughter. When she goes missing, the trail appears right at Edward’s doorstep and his collection of dead bodies and other activities won’t be hidden for long.

There isn’t a moment in this book that is wasted because of its short length and tense plot. It tells a fascinating Psychological Crime Thriller from beginning to end that takes multiple view points of the murders, the coverups, the investigation, the arrest and trial of Edward’s colleague and cohort, Greg Sterling, the estate gamekeeper’s son, and the eventual accusations and evidence mounting against Edward. 

Edward makes for a charismatic but terrifying killer. He is reminiscent of the type of villain found in old Alfred Hitchcock films who hides his sinister intent underneath a veneer of wealth and privilege. He is the center of a very wide circle of the elite and famous, people who get drunk, take drugs, sleep around, and run wild. 

One of his favorite places to scout for potential victims is the International Edinburgh Festival because it fits both aspects of his personality. It’s a public place to go where he can see and be seen among the fashionable and idle rich elite. It’s also somewhere he can find young female victims far from home, easily attracted to his charm, and who may not be reported missing for while if ever. This location selection reveals that Edward spends just as much time maintaining this entitled surface as he does killing women. It is the surface that allows him to do such nefarious things without getting caught. 

After all, Edward could always call a solicitor, one of his father's contacts, crooked and prestigious law enforcement officers, one of the estate’s many employees, or a partygoer and an alibi is provided, money is thrown around, bribes are offered and taken, threats are made, a witness is paid off, a case is dropped, a body is hidden, and Edward is home free and clear. These are resources that Greg doesn’t have so it’s no surprise that when the law comes, they come for him and try him as the killer instead of Edward. Greg is made the fall guy and Edward is all too willing to throw him under the bus so he can continue his private activities. 

To be fair, no one looks particularly good in this book. Many characters reveal a duplicitous nature underneath their surface. Chloe’s friend, Shannon Kelly is a distraught key witness but she is also an aspiring actress who is willing to use her friend’s death as a launchpad to her own career. Her father, Senator Jeffrey Bridgeport, is clearly grieving and wants to see justice done but also knows that he can get sympathy votes that will take him far into politics, perhaps to the White House.

 The prosecution and defense attorneys, Thomas J. Dodd and Penelope Thompson respectively use the case to raise their own standards and those of causes that are important to them. Then there’s Edward’s father, The Duke of Belford, who becomes aware of his son’s violent tendencies, has his own speculation, and has to weigh whether he wants to protect his family name and legacy or provide evidence against his son and give Edward’s victim the justice that she deserves. 

The North Sea Killer is a tense thriller that peeks into various minds in a murder and its aftermath the investigators, the witnesses, the allies, the attorneys, the judge, the court staff, the jury, the observers, the friends, the family members, the victims, and the murderers. 

The Mantis Corruption (The Mantis Gland Series Book 3) by Adam Andrews Johnson 

Now we return to Teshon City and its world of Shifts, people with extraordinary abilities provided by the Mantis Gland and their sworn enemies, The Messiahs, a theocratic powerful religious cult that force Shifts into isolation, imprisonment, and extinction while killing them and feasting on their glands. The first volume, The Mantis Variant introduced us to this Science Fiction world and its protagonists Ilya, a Shift with the ability of flight, Dozi, a human runaway and their new family The Mystic, who has healing abilities, Theolon Mystic’s husband, and Lahari, their Shift daughter. The second volume. The Mantis Equilibrium introduces us to some new characters like Nanyani and Tachma, new Shifts and Auntie Peg, the eccentric leader of the Anti-Messiah resistance. It also makes the series darker by raising the stakes, putting the characters in more violent and destructive situations, and killing off an important cast member.

If possible the third volume, The Mantis Corruption gets even darker by giving us characters with stronger and more chilling powers and severe graphic body modification. It also expands the concept even farther by taking place mostly outside of Teshon City and putting the regular cast in supporting roles towards the end. 

West of Teshon City are the wastelands of Xin. Sumi and Harakin are among the many who were forced into the military from the time that they were children. They are also the only non-humans in their regiment and have abilities that help their destructive commanders. Harakin can manifest light and can create photon blades that emerge from her hands as weapons. Sumi can transport people and objects from one place to another.North of them the village of Kestapoli where a woman named Tisa can create figures out of shadows that do her bidding resides. She encounters a new companion Olona, an organic mechanic who builds prosthetic body parts. The four characters end up ostracized and isolated from the oppressive regimes that surround them. They have to go on the run and into hiding. If only there was a resistance group made up of humans and Shifts, that fight these regimes perhaps in Teshon City. Meanwhile, at Gunge there is a colony that could serve as a warning for the avaricious and cruel Messiah. They absorbed the Mantis Glands and also everything else from the Shifts including their bodies.

This is the volume that is larger, larger in setting, larger in powers, larger in scope, and larger in conflicts and consequences. Instead of focusing on the core characters in and around Teshon City, it focuses on some new characters in new places.

We get to see more of the world that surrounds the entire series and the people who reside in these different locations. Xin for example is a savage militarized wasteland whose residents have to fight for survival. Kestapoli by contrast appears more picaresque, almost reminiscent of a Medieval village but many of its residents are just as cruel and intolerant towards Shifts as the Xinian military are. This focus on surrounding communities reveals that the conflict against the Shifts is a universal one that is seen in several countries, villages, cities, and cultures.

Along with the expansion, this volume emphasizes the darker aspects particularly with the character’s physical and psychological states. The book is very upfront with how child soldiers are formed with the violence, regimentation, and forced executions faced by Sumi and Harakin. Their superiors are intentionally cruel and sadistic as one would expect a militaristic society to be. 

However, there is something just as threatening, maybe even more so from the people of Kestapoli. It doesn’t take much to turn this seemingly normal peaceful community into a bloodthirsty volatile mob that will turn on their own as Tisa discovers with her bigoted parents. We expect nothing resembling empathy or loyalty from Xin so we are not disappointed when none is shown. But the rejection from Tisa’s family hits the soul because these are people who should have loved her but instead do not accept her as she is.

The darkness is also felt in the more physical attributes. In previous books, the Shift’s powers were amazing and would probably be ones that Readers wouldn’t mind having. Who wouldn’t want to fly from one place to another or use superior strength to lift heavy objects? On a hot day wouldn’t it be fun to use your ice giving powers to cool yourself off or use fire on a cold day? Yes the Shifts have the potential to be dangerous but when they are used as weapons, it’s accidentally as Nanyani shows in the last book.

In this volume, the Shift abilities are not only strong but powerful and potentially destructive, facts acknowledged by those who lead them. Sumi and Harakin are forced to use their powers to kill in very graphic ways. In one chilling chapter, Sumi observes various prisoners and obeys her commander’s orders to kill them. She does so by using her transportation abilities to move their hearts and other organs from their bodies and crush them while the remaining body parts explode. Shifts are born with these abilities and can’t always help or control what they do with them but there are those who will exploit those abilities for their own ambitions.

By far the most graphic, stomach churning, and unforgettable aspects of the book are the Gunges. They are creatures from nightmares, are no longer human, and have metamorphosed into complete monsters in body and personality. Some have extra arms and legs growing out from their torsos. Others are covered with eyes that belonged to their victims. Others’ throats retain different voices of those that they absorbed going from low bass to high soprano in one conversation. One character has absorbed so many Mantis Glands that he is a large misshapen gelatinous blob of various body parts merged into one form that can barely move. It’s not a place to let the imagination dwell too much if they don’t want to have trouble sleeping afterwards. 

The expansion and the darkness cover the book so much that when the plot returns to Teshon City and the original characters, the book changes. The original characters and setting are missed and it's great to see them back again. It’s also wonderful that Sumi, Harakin, Olona, and Tisa are in a place with a diverse group of friends and allies that welcome and accept them. 

However there are some concerns. Among them is that the meeting between old and new characters happens so late in the book. We have gotten so used to this new environment that returning to the old one is almost jarring and abrupt. Yes, we expected the groups to meet. That was a given but when it happens it does almost as an anticlimactic afterthought instead of a natural progression. Perhaps they could have just given this book to the newcomers and have them meet the older characters at the very end, during the last couple of chapters. That way their new acquaintanceship can be fully explored in Part Four.

The other issue concerning the meeting of worlds is what happens to the action afterwards. The meeting is abrupt but so are some of the following chapters which deal with many of the fights and battles. The conflicts are anticlimactic and move too fast. This is especially egregious when some of the characters that confront and vie against each other have been around since the beginning. The confrontations have little build up and require more resolution and follow through to make a more gradual approach. Instead it feels like, “That’s all after three books? That’s all there is? What happens in the next two books?” 

The expanded universe, new characters and the darker atmosphere are the best aspects of this volume and the reunion with older characters is a nice return, but the third book probably needed more work to make this volume stand out from the previous two.

Memories of MK Ultra: A Journey of Discovery From Darkness to Deliverance by Bill Yarborough; A Truth Inspired and Terrifying Tale of Child Abduction and Mind Control

 

Memories of MK Ultra: A Journey of Discovery From Darkness to Deliverance by Bill Yarborough; A Truth Inspired and Terrifying Tale of Child Abduction and Mind Control 

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Of the human experimentations,  one of  the most enigmatic, controversial, and infamous (and that’s saying a lot) is undoubtedly MKUltra. It was designed by the CIA, lasted from 1953-1973, and was a series of experiments that used numerous methods, such as psychoactive drugs, brainwashing, electroshocks, sensory deprivation, isolation, psychological manipulation, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, and torture, often on unsuspecting people who did not know that they were being experimented upon or if they did, what the studies were actually for. The goal was allegedly to develop and produce drug interrogations that could be used to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and torture.More than 80 institutions were involved including military, colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.There were many deaths connected to the project, most notably Frank Olson, a US Army biochemist and biological researcher. Olson was secretly given LSD without his knowledge or consent and died after falling from a 13th story window a week later. MKUltra was a blatant violation of human rights and revealed the CIA’s abuse of power, particularly with regards to withholding consent and an inability to uphold democratic principles.The project officially ended in 1973 and was revealed to the public in 1975. In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered 20,000 documents related to MKUltra. Surviving information was declassified in 2001. 

Despite the declassification, there is plenty of speculation about many other experiments, methods, real goals, how far it reached, who was experimented on, and even more frightening whether it’s still going on. Some of it can’t be officially confirmed or verified but many first hand accounts and personal testimonies suggest that some of those theories might be more fact than fiction. Among those speculations are whether MKUltra targeted or experimented on children. There are no confirmed or definitive answers whether or not children were experimented on, though there are first hand testimonies from those who claim to have been child victims of MKUltra’s experimentation programs. One of those people is Bill Yarborough. He believes that he, his brother, and sister spent the summer of 1958 being experimented on for MKUltra, They blocked the memories out only to begin recalling them in the 1980s. Their experience was the inspiration for Yarborough’s semi autobiographical novel, Memories of MK-Ultra: A Journey of Discovery from Darkness to Deliverance.

Now it’s worth noting that even though Yarborough insists that the kernel of his book that he and his siblings were part of an MKUltra experiment is true, the book is not actually about them. It is only based on them and is considered a work of fiction. The perspectives from doctors, researchers, and military personnel are speculated upon by Yarborough himself. Also he acknowledges that many of the esoteric themes and paranormal situations might have been triggered not by actual events but by trauma, drugs, and altered memories. Because of this, from this point forward, I will treat the book as fiction and refer to the context within the book itself for the remainder of this review. 

In 1958, Tommy Matthews, his sister, Beth, and brother, Curtis were kidnapped during a family vacation in Washington D.C. They spend several weeks being educated and monitored in a secret MKUltra facility by various personnel including Dr. Rudolf Holtzman, an expert on mind control. The children are subjected to sexual abuse, sensory deprivation, mind control, psychoactive drugs, extrasensory perception tests and various other tests. Even though the experiment only lasts for a few weeks and the children are eventually released to their parents, they are left seriously damaged well into adulthood, particularly Tommy. He develops a very aggressive and violent sex drive and mysterious outside forces influence him to one day become President of the United States. 

The book alternates between Tommy's perspective and Holtzman’s. Holtzman's chapters present detail by detail what exactly happened to the children during those weeks and the experiments are harrowing. They are prostituted by a pedophiliac soldier. The researchers create mental associations with actions such as putting a fear of death into Tommy if he fails in school. They use hypnosis and subliminal messages to make Beth see ghosts and spirits and brainwash and drug Curtis to the point that he can barely function as an adult. It's hard enough to imagine this treatment on adults but to picture it on children makes it ten times worse.

The experiments make one wonder whether the military and researchers even thought about the long term effects of what they were doing. Okay, they might have created people who could withstand torture or in the case of the book get elected into positions of power but they could just as easily have created people with extreme psychological disorders that might be unable to function within any society. Holtzman does consider these possibilities up to a point becoming a moral center in MKUltra, well sort of.

Holtzman questions some of the ill treatment and the means and motives of his colleagues, particularly those who had ties to the Nazi Party in Germany. However, he still allows the experimentation to happen and monitors the children's progress as though they were lab rats. He is also concerned with outside influences on the children particularly Shoney, an older boy who shows a protective big brotherly streak towards the Matthews children. Shoney becomes their only link to the outside world and the closest thing to a positive parental figure that they have during that time and one would argue even afterwards since their parents are ultimately found wanting. 

Holtzman cares about the children, but is threatened by Shoney’s bond with them.

The impact of the experiments is felt even after the children return to their parents and into their school days. It makes their mark forever and shapes them into adulthood. Tommy in particular is affected by the expectations set on him by his parents and the researchers. The fear of failure equated with death causes him to become an overachiever throughout school and conjure up paranoid delusions about authority figures. He also has very aggressive sexual impulses connected to violent images and news. Energetic fast paced music connects him to his ambitious side and future goals. All of these associations and connections lead to him becoming an ambitious political figure one who will lead, connive, conspire and if that doesn't work destroy everything around him to fulfill his vision.

While Tommy's path is set towards outside ambitions, Beth’s is more set towards the mystical and otherworldly thanks to MKUltra’s tests on remote viewing and astral projection. A literate and creative girl, she became tormented by visions of aliens and ghosts that she sees out of the corner of her eye and very vivid dreams of other worlds. Beth rebels against her parents and in the late 60’s walks the hippy path. She constantly looks to different religions such as Christianity, Occult, and New Age practices for spiritual validation. Her mystical experiences inspire her to become a best selling Science Fiction author and study hypnosis to retrieve her and her brothers’ memories.

Even though Beth and Tommy were traumatized by MKUltra, they are still able to function as adults and carve out something resembling lives of their own despite the ill treatment. They are shaped but not entirely beaten. The same could not be said for Curtis making his story the most traumatic of all. He obtains a fascination for masculine and virile images of superheroes and larger than life performers like John Wayne inspiring him to become an actor and stuntman. However, inside his masculine and virile exterior is a frightened little boy. Of the three siblings, Curtis has the hardest time adjusting to the outside world and is tormented by visual and auditory hallucinations and paranoid violent delusions. He ends up institutionalized under Tommy's care. 

Three children were used, abused, and betrayed and became completely damaged, programmed, disturbed, and ruined as adults. All because of a secret government project that led to decades of distrust, suspicion, violence, and insanity, destroyed many lives, and ultimately proved nothing. 

Shadow Runner (Shadow Series)by K.J. Fieler; What Victorians Do in The Shadows

 

Shadow Runner (Shadow Series)by K.J. Fieler; What Victorians Do in The Shadows 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: K.J. Fieler’s Shadow Runner novel uses shadows as a frequent motif. Characters appear and disappear into shadows. Mentors hide their true selves from students. People discover hidden secrets about Victorian London's elite. Everything and everybody is concealed by some veil of secrecy, hiding who they are, and showing their dark sides, their shadow selves.

Ada is from a wealthy upper class Victorian home who was once spoiled and coddled and now no longer is either one. Her mother died in childbirth along with her newborn baby brother. Her father, once loving and wise, has now withdrawn into himself and avoids her entirely. Besides grief, Ada is tormented by strange clouds and creatures that come in and out of the shadows at night. She is afraid especially after one of those creatures kidnaps her. It is revealed to be Nadine, a human woman, who exposes some ugly truths about the girl's father. She is part of an organization called The Shadow, a team of thieves, spies, and assassins who are capable of fighting, killing, and turning practically invisible. Finding that she no longer has a home to return to, Ada takes Nadine up on her offer to join the organization and begins a rigorous training where she learns to outfight, outwit, and outlast any opponent and to treat everyone like an enemy including those closest to her.

This book presents a fascinating look at a young girl who has to be stripped down to her barest minimum before she recognizes the hidden strength and adaptability that she needs to survive in the world. Ada starts out as an object of beauty living an ornate existence of opulence and artifice, almost a doll-child made of porcelain in a doll house. If she has questions about marriage, position, social class, her role as a woman in society, and other important issues they are all dismissed, repressed, and just flitted away. 

Ada’s life is summarized as pretty to look at but don’t touch or express any feeling or deep emotional connection.That will cause the entire house to crack, flaw, and break under its fragility. Her family life stands, as did many wealthy homes in the Victorian Age, a monument to propriety, beauty, ennui, and comfortable ignorance. People who will never want for anything because they have everything. 

Ada’s only sense of authenticity is when she plays chess with her father and shows profound intellect and analysis in playing the game. Besides showing her intelligence, her chess games prove useful in her Shadow career. However, at this point, it’s still confined to a game with rules in which one side wins, another loses, and there is no collateral damage. It's also one of the few moments of real bonding between Ada and her father. It is a time to out play and outsmart each other. However, Ada never realizes that she has already lost and her father had a checkmate in a game in which she didn’t even play.

The artificial existence that Ada lives in changes after the deaths of her mother and brother and her kidnapping by Nadine. For the first time, she is swept up in grief, loss, and the reality that comes with them.These emotions overwhelm her because she is so inexperienced with them. She is in torment as her once idyllic seemingly perfect world’s cracks have become more visible. She is a stranger to her father and while she still is close to some of the servants, they are dismissed by him. Ada thought that she had another family. For the servants though, it was just a job, a job that they can walk away from anytime, either by choice or by force. 

Ada realizes that she is invisible in this house, a fact made clear during a bizarre multi page sequence where she actually turns invisible in the presence of the servants. She shows no reaction during it or after things return to normal and she is noticed once again. She has been pampered and petted as a pet or an ornament but is never acknowledged or seen for her true self in any way that mattered. She has been invisible and replaceable her whole life. She just didn’t realize it until now.

 It is no coincidence that Ada joins The Shadows after she finds out some disturbing motives from her father. She is faced with the truth that the opulent surface that she lived in was a complete fabrication, one in which she was exalted only to be knocked down and replaced like a shiny bauble that has lost its value. Once she is shut out from that life, and she feels the despair, anger, and hatred that simmers inside, she is ready for her new life as a Shadow.

Ada’s training as a Shadow is both disturbing and mesmerizing.The Reader wants to simultaneously look away but at the same is drawn to reading what happens to her and how this experience changes her. The training is like the worst kind of bootcamp imagined and to think this is happening to children younger than thirteen, some as young as seven. The trainees are shorn of their hair, deprived of their clothes and made to wear uniforms. Some are given new names and identities. They are trained rigorously in various fighting and defense techniques and frequently challenge one another in fights to the death. They are given limited rations and are often beaten, assaulted, and verbally abused. They are brought to their lowest and most aggressive instincts and are pushed into using them for a means of survival.

The physical training of the Shadow is triggering enough, but the psychological training is also captivating and troubling. Ada and the other Trainees are not only stripped of their identities but any sense of family, friendship, or belonging. They are drilled not to trust anyone, especially not one another or their handlers. They are told things about their families that may or may not be true but certainly puts them in an air of suspicion towards those who they left behind. The trainers intentionally encourage competition and infighting among the recruits so friendship does not form within the Shadows and they see one another as enemies. This even carries over as Shadows ascend within the organization and gain recruits of their own. They then have to use those same techniques on any new trainees continuing the cycle. 

The Shadow’s strongest ally in their battle against the world is the environment that surrounds them. While on assignments, they are either told to wear uniforms or period appropriate clothing to blend in and disappear within a household, sometimes impersonating servants or houseguests. At night, they also wear ghoulish disguises and masks so when they attack, they remain unidentified and can appear to be unreal like an ominous spectre or a figment from a nightmare. Then they disappear just as suddenly as they appear with no one the wiser about where they came from, where they disappeared to, their real names, or in some cases if they ever existed at all.

It is fitting that they call themselves The Shadows, because that is their most prominent weapon. They use shadows to sneak in and out of streets, alleyways, houses, and nature. They conceal themselves as they extract information and kill those whom they are assigned to. They do this to avoid emotional and mental connections with their targets and because they are not within that outside world any longer. They no longer trust it. Instead they are hidden, secret, observing a world in which they are no longer a part of except to take something from it at the behest of someone else. 

Ironically as Ada remains hidden like her colleagues, her true, most honest, most authentic self emerges. Before she was living a shallow existence in a luxuriant shell. She was never honest with herself, always playing the perfect and dutiful daughter as her parents were playing the loving and proper caregivers. As a shadow, she is able to use tremendous strength and agility in fighting opponents. Her chess training allows her to strategize so she can solve problems and find solutions that result in victory. Her literacy and education helps her to visualize possibilities and research pertinent information that prove useful on assignments. As a Shadow, she is able to use skills and knowledge that would not have been possible in her previous life.

Despite all warnings. Ada’s biggest drawback is that she develops a conscience and begins to genuinely care about certain people. As her body and mind develops as a Shadow, so ironically does her heart. She becomes attached to a younger Shadow and while they engage in vicious battles and backstabbing, she withdraws from actually killing her even though she has plenty of opportunities to do so. On an assignment where she poses as a governess for an employer whom she has to steal some documents from, she bonds with the young girl that she teaches, perhaps seeing her younger self or a more assertive version in this child. She stands on the edge of a romance with the girl’s brother until Ada does something unforgivable in the name of her assignment, something that closes her connection to the outside world forever.

The strongest bond that Ada develops oddly enough is with Nadine. Despite subjecting her through physical and psychological stress that tests her endurance and ability, Ada feels a strange emotional bond with her. Call it Stockholm Syndrome. Call it codependency. Call it BDSM. But something develops between the two women that becomes mentor-student, mother-daughter, sister-sister, friend-friend (maybe lover-lover?). It is one in which the two hide much from each other but ultimately reveal the true depths of their love and loyalty. A love and loyalty that far superseded and exceeded the love that Ada and her parents, especially her father, shared.  

In being rejected from the bright and beautiful but dishonest world in which she lived, Ada had to find herself in a world of honesty and authenticity, a world of tough choices and real emotions, a world of courage, stamina, thought, and sacrifice, a world of darkness and of shadows. 

 

Redemption The Last Order by Anirudh Vaishya; A Broken Reflection by Shelly M. Patel

 

Redemption: The Last Order by Anirudh Vaishya 

Redemption: The Last Order is a screenplay that is both cerebral and thrilling. It is equally a mental challenge and adrenaline rush. It would be interesting to see how it resonates as a film for moviegoers who like action military movies and those who like psychological and political thrillers. 

On his first mission PFC John Brandt is the only survivor in a strategic fiasco that ended with the deaths of his crew, a base destroyed in a nuclear standoff, and injuries that put him in a coma for five years. When he awakens, he is informed that he was in a simulation and the memory was one of his lieutenant’s. He’s awake but the rest of his team are still in their comas and his CO has died. His superiors are very interested in how he broke from the simulation and woke up as though his brain is somehow immune to the computer interface that his teammates are still in. Meanwhile, his journalist girlfriend, Amanda, is missing while covering a high profile story in China and war between the US and North Korea seems inevitable because of interference from Su Hyang, a former US ally/informer turned traitor. Weapons threaten to rain down on both sides and one location hits a bit too close to home for Brandt, literally. 

This is a very effective Thriller. The opening is tense as Brandt is faced in a worst case scenario that is meant to have no positive resolution. Every decision is calculated for him to lose which puts him out of his element. It’s an overwhelming and traumatizing experience that plays on many of the fears and anxieties of being in a warzone and knowing that every decision that one makes could be their last. 

That this is a simulation offers no comfort. In a way, it is very similar to The Manchurian Candidate or other films that play on the plan of brainwashing military personnel. They study the fears and anxieties and don’t have any considerations about what it might do to the participants. It is a microcosm of the concept of war itself in which people in the higher echelons send those in the lower to fight and die, testing their resolve, physical endurance, intellect, adaptability, strategy, and survival instincts. They send them to die and consider the results either unfortunate mistakes, acceptable losses, or satisfactory when more on the other side are killed.

Brandt’s relationship with other characters flesh out his personality. While there are many characters such as his mother, friends, and colleagues who awaken Brandt’s protective nature, there are two in particular that serve as counterpoints to Brandt’s journey. The first is Amanda. Sometimes romances are a distraction or an unnecessary subplot in the genre but in this specific case and context it works. 

Amanda is just as dedicated to her journalism career as Brandt is to his military career. Their encounters are not a passionate romance between lovers but a partnership of equals who use their different talents to report the truth and protect the people doing so. Their relationship is a realistic coupling of people in high risk stressful situations. They gravitate towards each other as an emotional release so when things are settled, they have a hard time functioning with the day to day dilemmas and conflicts like where are they going to live or what their future plans are. 

The other emotional counterpoint is Brandt’s father, Charles. He seems like a quiet unassuming guy but we later learn that he is more involved than he lets on. In an extended flashback, one of the highlights of the script, we learn Charles’ backstory and his close connection to the current events. We see him as a young inexperienced brilliant student and his allyship with another character. We also see how these past decisions shaped his son’s future and those of other key players. The tragedy is human error caused this situation. Things were done and said at the wrong time,place, and circumstances. Decisions were made that only peripherally involved the lead characters but led to distrust, suspicion, and a lifetime of rage, despair, revenge, and compliance. 

Redemption: The Last Order is the kind of screenplay that keeps you at the edge of your seat but makes you think about what you just observed. It says a lot about patriotism, free will, mind control, domination, propaganda, and what it really means to fight, die, and live for your country.

A Broken Reflection by Shelly M. Patel 

This is a shorter adaptation of this review, the full review can be seen on LitPick. 

A Broken Reflection presents an absorbing investigation with multiple viewpoints and leads but ends with a resolution that is disappointing, overdone, and does very little to make this variation unique or stand out from others.

Claire and Stephen seem to have an idyllic affluent married suburban life but it's all surface. There are cracks in their home life that are becoming more evident. Stephen has had many extramarital affairs and Claire is being seen by many colleagues and acquaintances as unstable and temperamental. Stephen’s infidelities and Claire's characteristics become more evident when a woman known to the couple has been found murdered. Claire is seen as a primary suspect especially when it turns out that the deceased woman was Stephen’s mistress. As bodies pile up, evidence gathers, and Claire and Stephen become more suspicious towards each other, Claire conducts her own investigation to clear her name. Meanwhile a very devious pair observe the events with their own agendas. Jessica has a dangerous fixation for Stephen and Cole is stalking the object of his affection: Claire.

There are some engaging bits, particularly as the characters are introduced and the investigation consumes them. Since the book is told from multiple viewpoints starting with Claire's, we already see the imperfections but not outright. Our sympathies move back and forth between Claire and Stephen depicting one another as abuser and victim, innocent and guilty. This causes the Reader discomfort and suspicion as we search for the real answers.

We peer into the points of view from various characters and we experience quite a few obsessions and potential motives. No one in this book comes off particularly well or likable. When the murders occur, it's not necessarily a question of whodunnit and is more who wouldn't do it?

By far the two most intriguing characters are Jessica and Cole. It says something in a cast of unstable dangerous people, that these two are the worst. Jessica is conniving and manipulative in her approach while Cole is more immature, having an almost adolescent crush on Claire. They take different pursuits towards the objects of their affections. These two are not a mentally well duo.

Unfortunately as interesting as the investigation is, the resolution is every bit as disappointing. Because of spoilers, it won't be revealed but let's just say that it's a cliche that is often found in soap operas and Psychological Thriller.There is a final twist that salvages the reveal somewhat, but it undermines what had been revealed so far and could have done with it. 

The ending of A Broken Reflection shatters what would have been a clear image of a good suspense novel into pieces.

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married by Mark Ross; Bookish Madness

 

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married by Mark Ross; Bookish Madness

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Books like any other arts and entertainment medium offers a means of escape, information, deep thought, knowledge, relaxation, and fun.

Mostly it can be a good thing but for some it can be a detriment especially if they have trouble separating fantasy from reality. Sometimes, what they read becomes more real than the world around them and they identify with the characters so much that they can't separate themselves from them. That is the conflict facing Emma Jenkins, protagonist of The Girl Who Didn't Get Married by Mark Ross, a psychological thriller about a bibliophile who is put into a destructive situation and copes by using her very active literary fantasy life.

Emma is engaged but her fiance, Christian calls it off the day before their wedding. Apparently he had something on the side with Dana Martin. Police officer Jared Evans interrogates her on the day of the wedding that never was to inform her that Dana was found dead inside a hotel room. Witnesses saw someone who looked like Emma leaving the hotel. She had the opportunity, means and certainly a motive so it doesn't look good. As Jared investigates Emma, Emma does her own investigation to clear her own name and confront Christian. She is also caught up in her favorite mystery novels and psychological thrillers identifying with characters like Amanda Chapman and Claire Rosen so much that she not only interacts with them but actually becomes the characters.

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married is a strong insightful psychological thriller about a woman who is on the cusp of losing her sanity right when her entire world is falling apart around her. 

Emma is someone whose delusions are getting in the way of living her life.

There are chapters where she talks to her favorite literary characters and they offer advice on her current predicaments. Whole chapters are told from those characters’ points of view not Emma's so the Reader is required to pay attention to whether Emma, Amanda, Claire, or one of the other characters is on the scene. 

It can get very confusing to follow especially when chapters jump from one point of view to another and where they purposely contradict each other. For example Amanda does things that Emma doesn't remember doing or has no control over. 

There are strong suggestions that Emma identifies with these characters because they act in ways that she wants to. They are brave, confident, self-assured, seductive, alluring, strong-willed, and are able to manipulate situations in their favor. Reading about, talking to, and becoming these characters becomes a wish fulfillment for a woman who feels like she has no sense of self-worth or identity and feels like a cypher in her own real world. Someone who things happen to rather than making them happen for herself.

Emma's transformations from character to character are the highlights of the book more so than the plot. The plot is suspenseful and mind twisting. There are some interesting detours and revelations that require the Reader to read closely and even go back to review them again just to be sure.

However, some plot points can be discombobulating. One in particular will have the character scratching their heads in confusion and torn between whether they loved or hated it. It requires some deep thinking and a potential suspension of belief but it also resonates with what we know about the characters and the information in which we are given and can infer.

The Girl Who Didn't Get Married is a compelling look at a troubled bookworm’s fractured mind. It's a bit dramatic but is also intriguing and sometimes scary to imagine how quickly that could become us.

Tales of Wythenwood by J.W. Hawkins; Bedlam Trances by Nicholas Wagner; Two Anthologies Reach the Dark Side of Human and Animal Nature

 

Tales of Wythenwood by J.W. Hawkins; Bedlam Trances by Nicholas Wagner; Two Anthologies Reach the Dark Side of Human and Animal Nature 

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: I have been reviewing a lot of anthologies this year. If you can't say it in a long novel, say it in a short story or novella and these authors do. Do they ever. 

Aside from being speculative anthologies J.W. Hawkins’ Tales of Wythenwood and Nicholas Wagner’s Bedlam Trances would have very little in common. Tales of Wythenhood is a fantasy about talking animals in an enchanted woods and Bedlam Trances is a Supernatural Horror and Crime Thriller about creepy people doing creepy things. But if we dig deeper, we discover that these books have a great deal in common. They are bleak looks that explore the dark side of human and animal nature. One is just more subversive about it than the other.

Tales of Wythenwood by J.W. Hawkins may be an anthology about talking animals, but don’t for a second think that it’s anything like Charlotte’s Web or Beatrix Potter. Think less Charlotte’s Web and more Animal Farm. Less Beatrix Potter and more Watership Down. Less Mickey Mouse and more Maus. It’s a very dark, at times disturbing and graphic fantasy novel that personifies animals with human traits and not very pleasant ones. Many of the traits that the flora and fauna represent include prejudice, avarice, wrath, vanity, aggressiveness, hatred, and vengeance. It is not some sweet adorable romp in the forest. Instead it is a commentary on human nature and it is forthright, savage, cruel, terrifying, beautiful, and captivating.

There are six stories total and the best are:

“Gerald the Mangy Fox”-What could be a decent variation of “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer” where a misfit who is judged by their appearance becomes a hero by helping the people who insulted them instead becomes much more subversive and yet somehow more honest.

Gerald is insulted by other animals, particularly the other foxes because they have beautiful coats and his is covered in mange. The foxes are also facing conflicts with the Great Oak, who is the leader of the Wythenwood. They resent having to give back to the forest what they take from it. Gerald, angry at the other fox’s treatment, starts a chain reaction that affects himself and the other foxes.

Gerald is reminiscent of human outcasts, people who are turned away by others because of their appearance or place of origin. Gerald, like many, grows to resent the treatment that he has been given to the point that he wants bad things to happen to his tormentors and doesn't care if they inadvertently happen to him. He is filled with anger and regret towards those who made him miserable. It makes him an outsider but it also makes him understandable.

We have all had situations like that where we were scapegoated and treated horribly like others. Better people often forgive them and work towards positive things in spite of or because of that derision. Most people to be honest simmer with anger and justifiable hurt. They hurt us so we want to hurt them back. Gerald is like that to the point that he makes deals with wolves and the Great Oak to get even with the other foxes. 

The final pages drip with irony as the results are not what any of the characters expected. It shows a reversal of beauty and ugliness where true natures are shown and exposed. It becomes a test of honesty, kindness, and mercy which reveal the appearance of the souls underneath. 

“The Fall of the Orchid Copse”-This story takes a strange but meaningful look at interconnectivity within countries and how much people claim independence but we are often linked by economic, political, and social interdependence. No one truly stands alone. People buy and sell goods and services. We live off of each other’s work and survive because of those connections.

Some animals of Wythenwood live in the Orchid Copse which is a specific part of the woods that operates by its own laws and regulations. It’s the time of year when the animals of Orchid Copse must decide which one of three animals, selected by the Great Oak herself, will be the leader of the Copse and whether the Copse is to remain an independent area or become a complete part of Wythenwood. 

This novella represents the way various nations are formed and the struggle that many face to become an independent country to themselves or to remain with a larger one and if so which one. There are many questions and arguments made by the various characters whether this is a flawed system or one that works. It doesn’t give any easy answers and allows the characters and Readers to decide for themselves.

Most of this story is seen through the eyes of Sriya, a fiery mongoose that questions this system that she has been given. She wants to know whether choosing only animals that are selected by the Great Oak is a real choice or whether it’s just the appearance of a choice. Is the Great Oak a dictator, an apathetic disinterested leader, or a loving parent watching her children? What does the Orchid Copse gain from maintaining its own complete autonomy from the Great Oak and what does it have to lose? 

Sriya represents the rebel, the one who recognizes the flaws in the system and has the passion to fight against and change it. When a violent action takes place, she is able to gather enough interest and a following for the Copse citizens to seriously consider breaking away from the Great Oak. But it comes at a great cost to their own freedom and security. 

Because it is based on the Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution of 2014, it also recounts what happens when rebellion falters and asks whether idealistic ideas are enough to sustain a community. It’s all well and good to break away from a government, but if there isn’t anything substantial to back it up and an actual plan in place, ideals and arguments are all that remains. 

“The Artfulness of Stupidity “-With all of the sweeping themes of politics, prejudice, and other important issues, Tales of the Wythenwood doesn’t lose sight of capturing good characters inside their fur and feathers. This is a particularly strong character driven piece in the anthology. 

In a colony of beavers, everyone does their part to build their dams and contribute to their community, everyone except Indoli. His outsider status, avaricious manipulative nature, and his insistence on obfuscating stupidity ends up causing problems for everyone in the woods, especially the beavers and himself.

Indoli, similar to Gerald and Sryia is also an outsider but unlike his appearance and his ideals, it is Indoli’s personality that makes him different. Instead of doing the hard work of his fellow beavers, he prefers to scheme and manipulate others. He plays dumb but is actually very clever in seeing problems and potential solutions. 

He is the type that knows where to point and put others in certain directions to acquire his own benefits, retain his own sense of leadership, or sometimes just to get even with others. He is a character who in other stories would become an outright villain. He could be reminiscent of corporate CEO’s or oligarchs who become wealthy not from their own merits, but from the labor of others. They control things from behind the scenes and are so drunk on their own power that they would rather hurt others, even if it means destroying all that they have worked for. They don’t see the danger that could backfire on them and in destroying others, they ultimately destroy themselves.

There is another possibility of Indoli’s character, one that is more positive towards him.Hawkins subverts those expectations of making Indoli a full villain by giving him certain character strengths and also a son, Pickwick whom he truly loves. Instead of being seen as a symbol of corruption and manipulation, he could also be seen as creative. He has a different mindset from those around him that causes him to function differently from the rest of the colony. He may not fit in, not because he chooses not to but because he can’t. This mindset allows him to come up with creative solutions that could be beneficial to the other beavers if they were implemented. Those traits that Indoli has gives him the ability to think and act differently, but also keeps him away from everyone else.

One of Indoli’s most positive characteristics is his love for his son, Pickwick. The young beaver is Indoli’s main confidant and sees the more vulnerable side that he keeps hidden from others. The two are at odds with Indoli’s means and methods, but they are still devoted as father and son. Pickwick doesn’t see a corrupt influence or an iconoclastic eccentric. He just sees his father. Likewise, Indoli doesn’t see a disappointment or one of the mindless herd working on the colonies. He sees his son. He gives Pickwick the love that he often felt was denied him by the rest of the colony and the Wood.

Bedlam Trances by Nicholas Wagner Bedlam Trances by Nicholas Wagner is familiar territory to the blog. It involves graphic horror in many different forms. Most of the stories focus on manipulation and control. One party uses violence and threats in their greatest extremes to control another. There is a feel of unease in each story as the truly violent means are executed and characters are left with broken lives, minds, hearts, and souls.

“Crown of Switchblades”-This story combines crime thriller with psychological horror and does both genres rather well. A criminal gang is caught up in a war between their employer and another upstart. What starts out as a crime spree of violence, public property damage, drunkenness, and debauchery becomes much darker as they run into a strange, morbid, and terrifying cult. 

“Crown of Switchblades” runs on two tracks and because of that the tone is drastically different. The first part is a black comedy along the lines of the Italian Job, Lock, Shock, and Two Smoking Barrels, or any Quentin Tarantino film. It consists of seedy characters having clandestine meetings, bodies tumbling out of cars, and plenty of f bombs shouted by no-hopers. It’s a grim but weirdly comic situation as the gang, particularly the main protagonist, Doss hit spots like pubs and football clubs as though they were just having a Lad’s Night Out rather than breaking the law on behalf of their leader. 

The story then takes a severe turn into something else as Doss and his cronies end up farther away from their city environment into a rural area dotted with abandoned buildings and metal sculptures called the pipe men. They then encounter the people behind the pipe men, a cult who is looking for someone called “The Prophet.” 

Once Doss encounters the cult, he is put in a situation in which he is not prepared. Before he and his friends were able to face these conflicts. They can deal with crime bosses, drug deals, and the occasional violent act. But this cult isn’t like that, they have darker purposes. They have no motives and they don’t care who fits their vision. They want to fulfill it and they draw Doss in a way that is incredibly bone chilling and ominous.

““The Tragic Events Befalling Lizaveta”-The darkness that these stories encounter carries over into the Medieval Era as Oresetes, a monk investigates some strange happenings in a monastery after a novitiate turns up dead. 

The murder mystery is effective as Oresetes and his superior, Wittelsbach investigate the murder and the various leads. The setting of the monastery is deceptively described in the first page which features children playing. It gives the impression of a good kind giving place which welcomes all. But the more that the protagonists visit the cold austere stone walls and the monks keeping secrets, the more an ugly side resonates. 

Things become more apparent when they enter an area called “The Hurting Place.” In a few pages, the secrets are revealed in a bloody violent confrontation. It shows the ancient outdoor Pagan subconscious inside the Gothic indoor Christian surface. It says that inside many law-abiding seemingly upright pillars of the community hides souls that seethe with wrath, sexuality, violence, anger, and hypocrisy.

“Notes from the Yucatan”-This is a very short story which makes the most of its setting to show the eerie sense of dread when one is out on an unfamiliar landscape and how it mirrors the dark souls that inhabit it. The Narrator is searching for a man named Sir Reginald with the help of a guide, Bartholomew. 

The setting has many descriptions of sinister trees, ruins, particularly pyramids, and harsh rain. It seems like the end of the world where someone is listening to every sound and seeing every shape and is in fear of what could be out there, whether it is animal or human. Whatever it is, it is coming for you. Worst of all, the body could be thrown somewhere and never be found.

The fear and paranoia in the setting is mirrored in the behavior of the characters that surround it. It  is like an Edgar Allen Poe story in which the Reader explores the Narrator’s fractured psyche and we see the violence in the main character is just as prominent as it is without. If anything it was even greater within the Narrator. He is not acting out of any motive or or reason. He is violent for violence’s sake, almost like a force of nature around him.

“Hecato’s Dream”-This story takes us to the decline of the Roman Empire.Two guards, Hecato and Rufus chase after an assassin and come face to face with their own mortality. 

This is set towards the end of an era and that is felt throughout the story. There are discussions about Gauls, invading armies, cults springing up, and lawlessness. The Empire that maintained such a wide control over various nations is on its way out the door. With that decline became a decline of structure, rules, regulations, defense things people like Hecato and Rufus were familiar with but had long taken for granted. 

Now during these times, bloody crimes occur but not in a way that feels justifiable or understandable, not for any specific reason. It is because there is no structure and the one that remains is so fatigued by the forces outside that they don’t care about the struggles within. If there are no laws, no one can be punished. If no one can be punished, there is no fear of being caught. Hecato and Rufus’ world is crumbling so they are taking what they can. They know that their time is short, just like that of the Empire and the only thing that they have left is their own violent avaricious angry urges that need to be satisfied. Once those are spent, they truly meet their ends in an afterlife in which they know but can’t accept that an inevitable end is coming. 

“Ceremony”- This story covers similar ground with “Crown of Switchblades” in which a seemingly badass group is undone by a supernatural presence and all of their braggadocio becomes a joke, whereas “Crown of Switchblades” excels in a shift in tone. “Ceremony” excels in dark comedy dialogue. Declyn, an investigator, is looking into  the rock group “The Raging Bastards. His lover, Misty, who is involved with not only him but the three guys in the group is his main contact. Declan’s time with the Raging Bastards begins with plenty of sex, drugs, and rock and roll and ends with blood, guts, and terror, especially after Misty disappears.

The key advantage is the dialogue. Many characters dance around the truth with plenty of strong language, sexual overtones, and violent metaphors. Many of the phrases like when Bastards member, La Roe sarcastically describes the group as “tree huggers preaching peace and love” brings ironic smirks. Other comments like “If I had your eyes, I’d drive us off a cliff” carry an edge of suspense undertones hidden inside the dark comedy overtones.

One of the more interesting aspects of the dialogue is the amount of foreshadowing. After the story is over, it’s worth going back and putting together the tantalizing clues that the characters dance around. The constant references to blood, animals, violence, and aggressiveness spill some of the tea before the entire kettle is knocked over. There are also warnings when people tell Declan that he should stay away and that he doesn’t want to know what Misty and the Bastards are up to. It’s one of those stories that lays the plot in front of you so when you go back and reread it, you think, “Of course, it was there all along!” 

The violence is graphic but detached in a way that makes it more grotesque or comic than scary. The moment when Declan reaches the truth is dripped in irony and gore. The final line is blunt in violence that comes out of nowhere leaving Readers to sort out the aftermath.

Retribution by Ian Conner; Conner Returns to Form in Superb Political Thriller

Retribution by Ian Conner; Conner Returns to Form in Superb Political Thriller

By Julie Sara Porter 

Bookworm Reviews 

Spoilers: Ian Conner is an author of great versatility. He samples from several genres and writes brilliant books within them. Dark Maiden  is a Supernatural Horror about a ghost and Native American legend that haunts a lake. The Long Game: An Amy Radigan Thriller is a Political Thriller about a reporter and the Vice President of the United States investigating a conspiracy involving several government operatives and the boisterous POTUS. Cardinals is a Dark Fantasy/Religious Satire about Asherah, God's ex wife who roams the Earth as an immortal vampire. Cooper's Ridge is a Science Fiction novel about the discovery, exploration, colonization, and exploitation of a new planet capable of sustaining human life. Griffin's Perch is an Epic Fantasy about a diverse group of heroes that fight against five vengeance seeking dragons. I once described Conner as “the literary equivalent of throwing everything to the wall to see what sticks.” That Conner can effortlessly travel from one genre to another shows great range and commitment to each book and the worlds that he builds within them.

With his latest book, Retribution, Conner returns to form or whatever passes for form in Conner-verse. It is a Political Thriller similar to The Long Game in that it involves a wide ranging conspiracy involving several key American politicians including the President. It is also a Psychological Crime Thriller about hatred, revenge, and the lengths people will go to satisfy their desire for vengeance.

Alex Conway is a broken man. His wife died of cancer during a previous government shutdown. Now his daughter recently died of influenza during another shutdown and his CHIP insurance has been denied. A lottery win does little to raise his spirits but gives him the resources that he needs for a long term plan of vengeance. He locates information on corrupt politicians that voted against health insurance and lobbied for causes like the NRA. He provides information to expose these politicians. He isn't just satisfied with killing their political careers but he wants to end their lives as well.

Meanwhile various FBI agents, government officials, and tenacious reporters investigate the seemingly random deaths of various politicians. This discovery reveals that these murder victims weren't exactly clean and this puts them at odds with powerful people, particularly the obnoxious President Glass. 

Similar to The Long Game, Conner bases his novel on real world events and people to present an even worse case scenario than what we are faced with, as if it could get any worse. Conner's writing suggests that maybe it can.

The most obvious comparison is the fictional President Frederick Glass whose abrasive unlikable nature and felonious past are certainly based on a former President and current presidential nominee. The book even uses some of the real-life model’s familiar sound bites. 

The opening set during a pandemic with overcrowded hospitals, desperate sick people, deaths of millions, and political inaction is definitely reminiscent of the Coronavirus pandemic. 

Even many of the plot points are also reminiscent of real life: such as a politician who gets away with a hit and run (probably a composite of similar incidents in the lives of Ted Kennedy and Laura Bush), a Presidential staff member who resigns from the Administration and becomes one of its strongest opponents (shades of Michael Cohen), Republican Christian Evangelist organizations, groups, and think tanks gaining enough power to sway the government to fit their needs (several most notably the Heritage Foundation right now), and the various sex, abuse, assault, and financial scandals (it would be easier to say who isn't involved in those in real life. Uhh…give me a minute).

When truth is stranger than fiction and catches up to the plots of Political Thrillers, it almost makes one wonder if there is really a need for fiction anymore? (That's rhetorical. Of course there is).

The plot of Retribution is particularly intricate with Conway’s revenge against the politicians that he blames for his daughter’s death. He doesn't just settle on one means for murder. That's for amateurs. He decides on several: a fatal auto collision here, poison meant to induce heart attacks there, maybe an anthrax laced envelope or two. Those that don't end up dead suffer massive career hits. Conway goes through various channels to find and expose his enemies.

 Conway's means and methods almost take genius proportions to the point where one could wonder if this was something that he wanted to do for some time. After all, a plan like this could take years to research, weigh the angles, and prepare. Is it entirely possible that this could be something that Conway wanted to do but the love for his family stayed his darker thoughts? That question is never officially addressed or answered but the possibility is there. If so, that calls to question whether his motives are purely out of an understandable desire for revenge or long term resentment towards a country whose leaders fail to let it live up to the standards in which they claim.

Conway is an interesting character who gets the Reader's understanding and empathy up to a point. Who wouldn't become angry at the system after their spouse and child die? It is completely believable when one has nothing to strike back at those who have everything. His means while questionable are fascinating from a storytelling standpoint. 

It helps that the people that Conway goes after are incredibly unlikeable in different ways. They are people who spent a long time getting away with crimes and misbehavior to the point that they are complacent. They are insulated in their privilege and power not seeing how their actions affect others. The murders and exposures are for many the first time that they have to face real accountability for their actions.

It doesn't help that Glass, the ringleader in all of this, is the worst character of them all. He is a completely immoral sociopath whose reaction to accusations is to throw other people under the bus, rivals, allies, staff, Cabinet and Administration members. His restrictive policies, hiring of sycophants, and making strict rules for others but allowing himself and his followers leniency creates many of the issues from the corruption, to the pandemic, to the shutdown. Let alone, not being a good President, Glass barely functions as a decent human being. He would almost be a one-dimensional cartoon villain if again he wasn't actually based on a real person who is still gobbling up headlines in his third bid for the Presidency.

While Glass and his cronies are horrible, Conway also is accountable for his own actions. The more enemies that fall prey to his machinations, the less relatable Conway becomes. He is isolated from those around him and ultimately to the Reader. 

Conway's vengeance becomes an addiction as he puts many in his path without realizing the long term consequences that could result. 

By killing the politicians, Conway is only creating martyrs for their supporters and killing the bodies. He is not destroying the regulations, bills, corruption, or the hypocrisy that caused such issues. In fact if anything, it's continuing even worse despite or because of the deaths. 

There are however people in the book who are able to see through Glass's corruption and Conway's violence and bring the truth forward. Randy Cardinale, Glass’s former Chief of Staff goes from being a Glass loyalist to his staunchest critic after realizing that he could no longer justify or defend his former boss’ actions.

FBI Special Agent Daisy West and her colleagues manage to put together all of the seemingly random information of the murders, including patterns, analysis, clues, and countless research into large files, to discover Conway's identity and motives. West proves to be a formidable opponent against him.

Rebecca Gerber and Chloe Sachs, reporters from rival news networks are able to put ratings and professional rivalries aside and work together to cover the stories of the murders and corruption. Their investigation into the Glass Administration is particularly compelling as they face death threats, assault, and in one chilling chapter arrest to expose not only Conway but the political corruption and machinations that created him.

Retribution is another of Conner's brilliant works. It is a superb look at corruption, politics, money, hatred, revenge, and murder.