Devastated by the heinous murder of his two-year old son at the hands of a serial killer just a handful of years after losing his wife in a freak accident, the last thing David Boyd wants to do is strap on a guitar, though that has always been his avenue of escape during bad times. But he’d never dreamed he would experience times as bad as this. David, Guitarist, singer, and song writer for death-metal band ‘Corpse Whisperer’ is, not surprisingly, inconsolable.
As a result of the crushing loss, he finds himself consumed by thoughts and wishes; and anger at the family he’d been cheated out of.
As he finally resorts to returning to the stage, the murders continue; the victims all death-metal performers and their families. Spread over a wide area, there appears to be no tie-in beyond the bands. The FBI Special Agent in charge of the case from the beginning works tirelessly to solve the case, offer David some closure, and see to it that the murderer gets what’s coming to him.
David is approached by a world famous psychic who claims she can contact his son; for a price. Desperate, and grasping at straws, David agrees. He soon discovers things are not as they seem. And neither is the psychic, who has her own motive for trying to reach the dead boy.
The story of a father’s love, which leads him to the brink of hell to avenge the death of his child.
I enjoyed this book. I bought a paperback version of Necromancer at the author’s book signing. At the very beginning, I felt bad for David. He lost his wife and his little boy. David just seemed to have bad luck all around. This made me hope that Special Agent John Paxton could capture the little boy Davey’s killer.
Eddie Roy has talent with writing imagery. For example, “…slid into oncoming traffic like an out-of-control turtle” and “…the ornate-looking chandelier dangling above him like a UFO against a bone-white sky.”
My paperback had some formatting issues. It was hit or miss with indentation of paragraphs. The majority of the book wasn’t indented at all, so it seemed like I was reading a big block of text, instead of having white space in the margins. There were a few typos with missing quotation marks with the dialogue.
My favorite lines from the book were: 1) David and Patty met about a year and a half after his creative desperation guided him in a direction he would eventually recognize as the beginning of his downward spiral. 2) David was addicted. He hated the music and the life, but he was addicted to the applause. 3) He probably wouldn’t continue drawing breath long enough to regret his carelessness. 4) They sat silently for a few moments, neither of them wanting to start a conversation, Paxton too hesitant, David too scared.
While reading, I couldn’t tell if the book was written in omniscience point-of-view or if the scenes were head hopping. Knowing every character’s thought process all at once didn’t leave any mystery. There was a lot of repetition with characters’ narrative summaries but it made sense because these characters were obsessed with what was going on around them. David was obsessed with losing his family in horrific ways. Agent Paxton was obsessed with finding justice for David. The bad guys were obsessed with bringing psychological warfare to David and Paxton, etc., etc.
The novella had great suspense towards the middle and last few scenes. It was cool seeing the villains portray themselves. At the end of the day, they were winning, so they were cocky with themselves. There was a satisfying ending. I was biting my nails scared for David’s safety. The ending tied everything together nicely.
I RECOMMEND this book to read.
Keep smiling,
Yawatta Hosby
