Boneman

Rating:
Summary: Boneman offers atmosphere with little else
Review: Boneman starts off promisingly, with a drug dealer getting snuffed by a zombie dealer intruding on his turf. Then things start a gradual decline. Few of the characters seem realistic and, to make matters worse, the sole female character and her family troubles is so underdeveloped it feels ignored. I found myself getting angry at the author, why couldn't she get more in depth? Still there are isolated moments of creepiness, just not enough to support a full length novel, perhaps a short story.

Rating:
Summary: Good Thriller
Review: I read this book and thought it was very good, it had very good descriptions, and a great story. other then the lack of expansion on Jackie Swans story it was great. after reading it i had a hard time beleiving that i had read it in a book and it wasnt a movie... had my imagination and mind wondering!

Rating:
Summary: Urban Voodoo crime fiction
Review: Lisa Cantrell's "Boneman" is about a new Hatian drug dealer in a small southestern city (sort of reminded me of Atlanta) who is using a Voodoo sorceror to use his magic to eliminate rival dealers. On his track is crime beat reporter J.J. and his best friend vice cop Dallas Reed. Also a new State Investigator Jacki Swann begins her own investigations into the strange gang land murders. This book is pretty streight forward, and so it succeeds in being a good (in fact really good) pulp horror/crime fiction book. Think of it as a kind of blend of the movie "Candyman" and Dean Konntz's novel "Darkness". The action and violence was fast and nasty. The scenes where some of Boneman's victims were experincing near death like symptoms and were in not in control of themselves (becoming sort of slaves) was a lot spooky. The Boneman himself is a great idea. In myth The Boneman is some kind of Voodoo boogyman; able to destroy you and steal your soul and leave his victims in a zombie state of being not alive or dead. On the negitive side of the book I really feel there could have been more if Lisa Cantrell had been a little more ambitious. I saw a lot of oppertunity to look at the Voodoo culture; not as a device for a horror story, but the actual belief system that makes it such a populor religion in the Caribbean islands. Also I really wish she had explained the so-called zombie drug a little more, I find it a facinating subject (for more on that, watch Wes Craven's "Serpent and the Rainbow" and then read the book by Wade Davis). "Boneman" is good pulp fiction; good for a quick scare and then uneasy dreams later on. I just mourn the lost potential for serious examination on a facinating subject. That is not a flaw in the book, just my personal wish.