Sean Costello’s Horror Novels: The Cartoonist, Eden’s Eyes and Captain Quad

In honour of Canada Day next Saturday, here’s some books by a Canadian author. Exactly one year ago, I read a horror novel by Sean Costello. It was great. I discovered that Costello had written two other horror novels, so I decided to read those too. Doing so was an excellent decision. I greatly enjoyed all three of these books.

The Cartoonist

Scott, a successful psychiatrist with a horrible secret, meets a strange patient at his hospital. This drooling geriatric can’t walk or speak, but he can draw. At first the drawings seem random and unconnected, but Scott soon realises this is not the case.

I really enjoyed this novel. It’s set in Canada, and at its core, it’s about a father trying to protect his little girl. Both the antagonist and protagonist are horribly flawed people, but it was difficult for me not to empathise with both of them, and parts of this novel really got to me. In the 3 days leading up to me reading this book, I read 3 other “paperback from hell”-esque novels (The Kill, Joyride, and The Scourge) , and I had enjoyed each one less than the one before it. I was expecting the same from this one, but it was way, way better. It’s not perfect (my friend Micah made some valid criticisms when he reviewed it), but I found it very entertaining.

Eden’s Eyes

This book starts off with a father signing the consent forms to donate his recently deceased son’s organs. The eyes go to a blind author, the kidneys go to a sick child, and the heart goes to a homeless alcoholic. Unfortunately for everyone, the donor’s mother is not happy about the organ transplants, not happy at all.

That’s the basic premise of the book. That probably doesn’t make it sound like anything special, and in truth, it didn’t really feel like anything special for the first 50 or so pages. Then things started to get darker and weirder by the chapter. It ramps up and up and up, and the ending is bloody glorious. This is a slasher at heart, but the characters are interesting, and there’s weird supernatural elements that make it quite exciting.

I was so excited after the ending that I spent about 15 minutes trying to talk my wife into reading this one. (She wasn’t remotely interested.) Eden’s Eyes was a lot of fun to read.

Captain Quad

I think this book may have the most off-putting title and cover of any horror novel ever. I didn’t want to read it, but I’m glad I did. It’s very dark, and I quite enjoyed it.

Peter Gardener is just about the greatest guy ever. He’s smart, athletic, handsome and kind. Unfortunately for him, he falls off his motorbike and breaks his neck. Being paralyzed from the neck down does two things to him. It gives him the opportunity to develop the ability to leave his body at will, and it also turns him into an evil psychopath.

That’s a horrible idea. It’s horrible because part of it is understandable. If I went from having the world in my pocket to losing the use of my body along with most of my relationships and dreams, I’m sure I’d become bitter. Hopefully not bitter enough to kill my mom, rape my ex, and shove an ice auger (basically a giant corkscrew) up an old friend’s anus, but definitely bitter.

Yes, this book gets very nasty. It was a bit like Eden’s Eyes in the way it transformed, fairly suddenly, from a gripping thriller to a gorefest.

Also like Eden’s Eyes, this one is about a person who develops psychic powers after going to a hospital. Sean Costello worked as an anesthesiologist, so this explains why sizeable parts of all three of these books take place in hospitals. The other books that came to mind when I was reading this were Trumbo’s Johnny Get Your Gun and Hallahan’s Keeper of the Children.

Captain Quad is unpleasant because Peter starts off as the good guy. He’s an extremely sympathetic character. You don’t want him to do the bad stuff he does, but it’s not too hard to understand why he does it. It’s difficult to read the book without imagining the same thing happening to yourself. I ride a bike to work every day, and the idea of getting hit by truck and paralysed is far more terrifying than a poltergeist. Honestly, the idea is almost a little too scary for a horror novel. I read these books to forget about my life, not to worry about it.

I really enjoyed these books, and I was really impressed with Costello’s writing. These are a step above a lot of the crap I read. Luckily for everyone, these three Canadian classics are now available as ebooks.