Evil in Asheville

Rating:
Summary: Throwback Thrills and Chills
Review: "The Evil in Asheville" is not a book in tune with the stylistics of contemporary horror writing. With the exception of a few "regular folks" pulled into the mix by author Warren, this novel is about larger-than-life characters involved in a larger than life struggle of Good vs. Evil, and the evil here is depicted AS evil...not as the trials and tribulations of misunderstood sexy vampires and werewolves.
This is not a book Goths would flock to.
Instead this is a bit of a throwback kind of a novel, one that harkens more to Stoker's "Dracula" than to Rice's "Lestat", and one which carries more the tone of H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Algernon Blackwood, Robert Leslie Bellem, or Clark Ashton Smith here (or any number of writers from the old days at "Weird Tales" magazine) than anything resembling, say, King or Koontz, or James Herbert.
The story is simple. There is a powerful Old Money/Old Strong Influence family in Asheville, NC...the Borleys...and they wield a certain unhealthy influence over the city that is not benign at all, yet is also not readily apparent. And this influence does not wane over the years. It grows.
The Borleys live in a dark "castle" of a mansion that looms on a hillside looking out on the city and getting inside that disquieting-looking abode of theirs is known to about like trying to gain access to the gold depository at Fort Knox. It ain't easy.
There is also a legend about a "something" that lives in one of the rooms deep inside the "castle"; a supposedly horrific something (called by some "The Horror") that is perpetually sealed off from view. Like the famous "monster" of Glamis Castle
in Scotland, its identity is not to be known. Is it a frightfully deformed family member? Who knows? Who can say?
There IS something there, actually. It is timeless and evil. It calls itself the Sate. The name is somewhat apropos. It does not imply a contraction of "Satan", but , rather, refers to the English word "Sate" (from which "satiated" comes). It means "having one's wants and desires fulfilled to the point of gluttony or revulsion"....and gluttony IS one of the "Seven Deadly Sins", is it not? The Sate makes bargains and deals with people. It brings them what they want. For a price.It is a Faustian price, but one the Borleys are quite content to keep on paying.
Into all this comes a mysterious stranger.He calls himself only "Kane". He is distant, aloof, enigmatic, and seemingly DRIVEN. He has come (or has been SENT) to deal with these Borleys and whatever it is they have dwelling with them. Who is he? Is he Robert E. Howard's "Solomon Kane", the Puritan demon-fighter, grown somehow immortal? Is he some kind of angel or demi-being sent out to confront evil in every form? Good question. He fits perfectly the classic "Mysterious Stranger" format of "Weird Tales" type stories from days gone buy. In such instances a mysterious occultist would often arrive to save the day for the regular folks who hadn't a clue about protection from the fiends of the Netherworld. In this respect, Warren's "Kane" has a STRONG similarity to Edward D. Hoch's "Simon Ark" character, a Coptic Christian priest schooled in the Egyptian Hermetic Occultist tradition, and in the Kaballah, and the white magicks of the Order of the Golden Dawn and the Society of the Inner Light. Like Kane, Simon Ark "arrives' when he is needed, confronts and does battle with..and vanquishes...the forces of Evil...and then vanishes into the night ("Who WAS that un-masked man?").
So, yes, Warren's Kane smacks strongly of Simon Ark. Yet he is also reminiscent of the aforementioned Solomon Kane, as well as Blackwood's "John Silence", Seabury Quinn's "Jules de Grandin", and even "Wuthering Heights'" brooding Heathcliffe.AND he has a touch of Doc Savage thrown into the mix as well. A hot-air balloon surveillance of the "castle" and a rifle-attack shootdown, has strong overtones of something you would find in one of Lester Dent's old "Man of Bronze" adventures.
Not any romance in this book. Events race along too swiftly and the rush to identify the nature of the Borley "horror" and
to confront it takes all precedence.
The author is very good with creating feelings of threat and unease, and is likewise good at action scenes. Also quite proficient in laying on mounting levels of tension.
This is good piece of writing for a first novel and leaves one wondering if Mr. Kane might be good for a return engagement
sometime.
I wouldn't mind seeing him again. (NOTE: the paranormally savvy Mr. Warren has chosen to name his evil family here the "Borleys". If the name sounds familiar, it is because he has borrowed the name of a famous haunting situation of the 1940s in England. Borley Rectory was known as the "Most Haunted House In England" and was rife with ghostly and poltergeist activity. Like the castle of the Asheville "Borleys", Borley Rectory also
ended its days in smoke, flame. and collapse.)

Rating:
Summary: The Evil in Asheville
Review: This was a great book. I did not want to put it down.