Voodoo Child

Rating:
Summary: Reaves Do the Best Voo Doo
Review: As a one-time fellow traveler in the world of horror fiction, I spend a lot of time reading what the competition is up to, and I find it depressing that so many books I pick up, I put down half-read.

Fortunately, there's a handful of writers I can count on to remind me that horror fiction doesn't have to be a second-class citizen, and Michael Reaves is the leader of the pack.

I read VOODOO CHILD in a single sitting and was sorry to see it end. Reaves has a spectacular gift for taking all the classic elements of horror and giving them a spin that makes them brand new. Plus, he is a stylist of elegant power whose prose is a joy to read, AND he gives us characters that are complex, rich, and believable - and that makes the horror all the more compelling, as the best horror should be.

Like Stephen King at the top of his game, VOODOO CHILD is firmly grounded in reality - in this case, New Orleans, so exquisitely realized you could believe Reaves is a Basin Street jazz musician instead of a Hollywood-based, Emmy-winning scriptwriter. And then, once that reality is established, as smoothly as Thomas Harris inviting us into the world of Hannibal Lecter, Reaves teasingly takes us from the little shivers of voodoo rites as they're performed in the real world to a bash-you-over-the-head-with-a-sledgehammer, pull-out-all-the-stops climax (in a graveyard!) that sucks us into a realm of ancient powers and beings beyond human comprehension. In the immortal word of Keanu Reeves - Whoa.

Reading VOODOO CHILD brought me echoes of The Exorcist, Black Sunday, and in its characterization, Silence of the Lambs, yet it stands as a completely original work.

I only ever have one complaint when I read a Michael Reaves novel - I have to wait a year for the next one.

Buy this book. Read this book. Rediscover what it means to enjoy being scared - and creeped out - and entertained again.

My highest recommendation.

Rating:
Summary: Dark Magic in Steamy New Orleans
Review: Michael Reaves has penned another winner with VOODOO CHILD, a well-written thriller set in New Orleans. As the science fiction, fantasy and horror reviewer for the Portland OREGONIAN, I called this book "a welcome addition to books that go bump in the night." And it is . . .

Rating:
Summary: Voodoo in Nola, With a Twist
Review: Voodoo Child is the third novel in a series of urban fantasies based on different magic traditions, but with a twist. Moreover, these stories are all hard-boiled mysteries. This novel invokes the tradition of Voodoun and Santeria.

Lia St. Charles is a New Orleans probation-parole officer who has Shane LaFitte among her parolees. Shane is a houngan, a Voudoun priest from Haiti, where he had been a friend of Jorge Arnez, a priest of Santeria and much more accomplished in his craft than Shane.

After several years, Shane begins to accept that his friend has become endiosados -- self-deified -- extending his studies to more powerful magics based on black witchcraft and ultimately gaining the power to enslave the mind of others. When the santero leaves Haiti, Shane and his wife, Anise, make arrangements to follow Arnez to the United States.

In New Orleans, Arnez is known as Mal Sangre and is the head of a powerful criminal organization. When Shane confronts him, Arnez gains control of his mind and forces him to kill his wife. When Shane is found with his wife's body, he is sentenced to 25 years in the state prison, but is let out after five years. Returning to Nola, Shane finds Arnez to be even more powerful and now planning a sacrifice to enable him to become a god.

When Shane tells his parole officer, Lia, that he is on a mission to save the world from an evil sorcerer, she doesn't believe a word of it. After Shane is found with a fired pistol in his hand, Lia sends him back to prison for violation of parole. Later, Lia is to learn that Shane was toning down the truth, but by then she was in too deep to back out.

Recommended for Reaves fans and anyone who enjoys tales of tracking down criminals who are using exotic and evil magic.