CONVOCATION, THE

Rating:
Summary: Holt's second novel almost as good as his first.
Review: John R. Holt, The Convocation (Signet, 1993)

John R. Holt's second (that I've been able to track down, anyway) novel, published three years after the groundbreaking When We Dead Awaken, was released to just as crashing a silence as was his debut novel, and faded just as quickly into obscurity. Which is quite a shame, because John R. Holt here, again, delivers a ripping yarn that's definitely far and above the average eighties horror novel (don't let the publication date fool you, John Holt is from the eighties-horror school of fiction).

Beth Tremaine's mother was killed, while she watched, by a convocation devoted to a supernatural entity called the Griffin. Just what the Griffin is is debatable; Satan's minion on Earth, Satan himself, Lucifer who never became Satan, take your pick. While still a child, she was taken in by an aunt and uncle, and after they died, she became the ward of another uncle, Nicholas, a Catholic priest who has devoted his life to being God's judgment upon the Children of the Griffin, including hunting down and exterminating every member of the convocation that killed Beth's mother. Beth, now older, is a young professional living in New York City with the brightest of futures. She's only got one problem: her boss is a member of the Children of the Griffin, the head of a different convocation. And he wants Beth to head it up. Worse yet, her childhood boyfriend is also a member.

The Convocation is a thicker, denser book than we When We Dead Awaken, and it makes for much slower reading. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though. Holt takes more leisure to develop a strong cast of characters (and the cast here is much wider than it was in the previous novel), so when things get moving, you've got a strong idea of who everyone is and how things are going to go. There's nothing terribly unpredictable about all this, but it's great fun watching it unfold.

Beth, Nicky, and the whole lot are begging to be turned into a movie, albeit an NC-17 one (The Convocation is not for the kiddies, folks; sex and violence abound in roughly equal quantities). A competent director and effects crew could make this one of the best horror films in years. But don't take my word for it; spend the time to hunt down a copy of this wonderful, obscure book after you've finally tracked down and devoured a copy of When We Dead Awaken. Both make for fantastic reading. *** ?