A serial killer is roaming around Chicago murdering people in wheelchairs by absorbing them into his chest. A person with a mental disability and his self mutilating friend decide to put a stop to this.
I wanted to like this book, but it didn’t really work for me. The supernatural element of the story, the method of killing, is bizarre and unnecessary. It’s quite confusing and doesn’t add anything to the suspense of the story. The plot would have been easier to follow if the murderer was using a dirty needle or something to kill his victims.
The biggest problem here is that here’s far too many characters. It only becomes clear in the last 3rd of the book who the main characters are. Up until that point the reader is seeing new names every few pages and struggling to figure out which ones are important to remember.
This is one of those books that includes lyrics from songs. I hate when authors do that. Stephen King and Shaun Hutson do it too. It’s lame. We get it. You like music. The problem is that your taste in music sucks. Keep it to yourselves, dorks. The author also gets too literary for his own good. This book features a prostitute with 2 heads. This is not the place for stream of consciousness and diary entries. You’re not James Joyce bro.
I read a short story by Wayne Allen Sallee in the Splatterpunks collection years ago. I can’t remember it specifically, but reading this book definitely reminded me of the stuff in those collections. There’s a kind of edgy self awareness to the writing that feels a bit contrived. At the same time, while most of the writing in the Splatterpunk collections focuses on punching down, this book does not stoop to those depths in its depictions of disabled people. I mean, they do get murdered, but they’re not disparaged or belittled. I wouldn’t say this is a particular tasteful novel, but at least it’s not completely morally repugnant.
