Book Reviews: Fiction

By Zachary Harr

Is there life on other planets?

The Eighth Day is a science-fiction thriller that takes its readers on a ride through two continents while trying to examine that same essential question.

When a parasite from outer space is found inside of a meteor that hit the small town of Havenbrook, Iowa, a group of classified men must do everything they can to keep it hush. Their plan to take control of the world and create a new utopian society by destroying the current one is almost set in stone, but two high school seniors hold the key to saving mankind. Just your normal weekend, right? I don't think so.

18 years ago, Jay Anderson and Kathy Winters were two of the six subjects tested in a top-secret assignment by the U.S. Government, labeled Project Centurion. As a result, their hyper immune systems allow them to be the only two people powerful enough to stop the deadly parasite and the men behind it. Jay Anderson and his friends are put through Hell and back when they risk being thrown into prison for their actions.

O'Neal puts his readers in the front seat making stops all over the U.S. and Russia. His ability to break down the difficult world of science and simply translate it to the reader is extremely helpful. It allows people like myself with little background knowledge to completely understand what is going on during each of the 307 pages.

Throughout the entire story, I wanted more between the friendship of Jay and Kathy. O'Neal successfully teases its readers from start to finish on the possible progression of their friendship. While I waited for their bond to take the next level, I focused more on the whole story. The Eighth Day dangled along the lines between predictable and unexpected, but that imbalance ultimately kept my attention.

The amount of characters can be confusing at times, but O'Neal submitted a list of all involved in the beginning pages. When you are first introduced the cast of over 50 people is alarming, however, I felt as if I was included with them—going through the trials and tribulations as they were.

It's a story about two teenagers and their friends, trying to save all of humanity from a group of terrorists with alien life on their side. This novel takes on a subject that is ever-growing in popularity nowadays and does a pretty good job of doing it. I can guarantee that anyone interested in science-fiction will love it but for those of you who aren't, you will soon be after reading O'Neal's The Eighth Day.

Zachary Harr, Editor-in-Chief of WNW, is a Nonfiction English Writing major at the University of Pittsburgh with a Theatre Arts minor.

By Carlotta G. Holton

“You don’t want to get caught out in the dark… you never know who you’ll run into,” warns a cop when he’s pulled over a car driven by Jack and Stephanie Singleton. The warning is ominous. Soon after their Mustang is wrecked in the Alabama backwoods and they seek refuge in the old Wayside Inn that is “set back in time.” It is there that their spiritual journey begins.

This is not your average haunted house story. While the façade speaks of a more genteel era, the inside is anything but southern charm. The symbolism weighs heavily throughout this tightly-written supernatural thriller written by Christian Fiction authors, Frank Peretti and Ted Decker. At the inn they meet up with another couple – Leslie Taylor and Randy Messarue, victims of a similar car mishap.

Playing hosts are locals, Betty and Stewart – described as inbreeds - and their mentally challenged son, Pete. Following a power outage, the two couples begin living their worst nightmares. Barsidious White aka “the tin man,” is a killer who crashes a vehicle into the house and sets the rules of a creepy psychological game that all four must play. The catch is that rules of engagement are based on their unique sins. The killer’s logic is that if the wages of sin is death, and everyone has sinned, then why should anyone live? The proposition is simple: “House rules: 1. God came to my house and I killed him. 2. I will kill anyone who comes to my house as I killed God. 3. Give me one dead body and I might let rule two slide. Game over at dawn.”

Betty shares an article that tells of another couple found dead in the house. “Seems like he’s been going on forever,” she says. “They go in old houses and never come out. We call him White after the first family he took down.”

Complicating the situation is the fact that their hosts are on the side of the killer. The strangers are forced to trust each other in an effort to defeat the killer and/ or escape. As they find their way to the basement the house takes on an evil of its own. Amidst pentagrams, flying meat cleavers, rotting food and a maze of rooms, Jack notes the house “transforms to become a crucible of power” which evokes its own sense of time and space.

Amidst the plot of twists and turns the authors successfully use the concept of mirror imagery to emphasize the sins of the victims as well as the labyrinth maze of the basement. The wall mirrors show no reflection. Neither do the characters initially admit to their own flaws to others or to themselves. For example, the soon-to-be divorced Singletons are holding onto their anger and fear after the death of their daughter. Jack discovers that the mirrors “are possessed by a power to mirror our hearts.”

The authors also effectively use the juxtaposition of opposites naming the black-hearted killer, “White” and having the guilty sinners assigned the task of saviors. With the introduction of Susan, another victim holed up in a closet within the constantly room-shifting house, there is a light of hope. She is described as “a picture of perfect innocence” and there are hints that she might be an angel. She is their guide to escape and forgiveness. With her help they must face their own personal demons and their pasts which haunt them. Adding to the confusion is the emergence of doubles. Mirror images of each character appear so that they are all forced to discern: Who is real and who literally goes up in black smoke? What is reality and what is fantasy?

At first reading House might be perceived as a horror story. In some ways it is; yet it is also a religious tale which serves to remind the reader of the flaws within each of us. At one point Jack questions God. “Where’s God, huh? If God cared about us at all, he’d do something about this fix we’re in, but guess what? No God, no help, no rescue, no point.”

Sometimes the horror we experience can be found not from the external world and the tragedies and terrors found there, but rather from our lack of faith and the sins and guilt within our own hearts.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead,Vampire Resurrection, and Deadly Innocence and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By Carlotta G. Holton

When 15-year-old Christopher Boone discovers his neighbor, Mrs. Shear’s poodle Wellington impaled on a pitchfork, he cradles it in his arms. Mistakenly thinking he is the killer, the owner calls the police and he is arrested. When his father bails him out, Christopher is determined to find the murderer. His task is an especially confounding one since the British boy is autistic and cannot socially relate to others.

His adventures are carefully annotated in what he calls his book, written in first person narrative. The author‘s quirky use of prime numbers as chapters, equations and drawings effectively illustrates Christopher’s thought processes. “Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away,” Christopher explains. “I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules.”

This clever and original book was joint winner of the 2004 Booker Prize and the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year award. A fan of Sherlock Holmes – but not its author, Arthur Conan Doyle – Christopher adapts the fictional detective’s methods to ferret out the killer; ego the title of the novel which is a quotation of a remark made by Holmes in the short story, Silver Blaze. Using Sherlock Holmes as a role model, Christopher sets about confronting neighbors about the dog. This is a Herculean task for a savant who doesn’t talk to strange people. He rationalizes his behavior: “I had to be like Sherlock Holmes and I had to detach my mind at will to a remarkable degree so that I did not notice how much it was hurting inside my head.”

Christopher lives with his father, Ed Boone, a boiler engineer, since his mother died two years ago. He does not want his son getting into other people’s business and takes away his son’s book. When after much snooping he discovers secret letters his father kept hidden from him, Christopher runs away in hopes of finding his mother. “I couldn’t trust him,” he explains.

In this fast-paced original novel the author evokes a sense of empathy for this teen that bravely treks off to London from his Wiltshire home. Along the way he evades a policeman, finds the correct trains and buys tickets to meet his goal. His exceptional mathematical and logistics abilities are put to the test numerous times. “When people ask me to remember something I can simply press Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause like on a video recorder….”

Christopher makes a long and event and people-filled journey. He becomes ill and likens himself to a computer filled with raw data, sans emotional connections. Overwhelmed by the large amount of information, people and places he encounters he describes his coping strategy: “There are lots of people there; it is like a computer crashing and I have to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL plus ALT and DEL and shutting down programs.”

Despite the difficulties he encounters and his own personal struggles, the book ends on an upbeat note. The author has taken a daring step to write from the perspective of an autistic youth and has successfully developed an admirable and memorable character. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night is a refreshing spin on a coming-of-age novel.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead,Vampire Resurrection, and Deadly Innocence and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By Danielle Bissert

From the moment I started reading The Second District I was hooked. It’s as simple as that. The whole world could have exploded and I would still be glued to my chair, totally absorbed in the life of Arch Sinclair, cowboy movie star, who buys a sprawling ranch in Oregon. Arch is a charming good guy who trades the “back-biting” frenzy of Hollywood for fresh air and open ranges. Or so he thought. What Arch got was bad guy Congressman Justin Yarbrough, a neighboring rancher, who does everything in his power to cause Arch’s venture to crash and burn. Why? Because he wants the land.

Arch isn’t the kind of guy to back down from a fight and figures his only way to win against Yarbrough’s dirty tactics is beat him in the upcoming election. So Arch throws his hat into the political ring and that’s when the real fun begins. Yarbrough is experienced at mud-slinging and is very well-connected in the political arena. So much so that Arch winds up looking like a criminal and is forced to hire Barry O’Shea, a smart, seasoned attorney to advise and defend him against Yarbrough’s accusations. Rapidly things turn ugly and Arch finds himself in court.

Author Jerry Banks, an attorney himself, effectively brings to The Second District an enriched courtroom drama that magnifies an already suspenseful plot. I knew Banks was an attorney before I started reading the book so I prepared myself to be confused and bored by the legal format that exists throughout much of the novel. Instead, Banks provoked in me the same addiction that glues me to the TV during Law & Order marathons.

The Second District, like all good fiction, has developed characters, strong setting and a well-defined plot. The conclusion: A jaw-dropping courtroom drama.

Jerry Banks’s latest novel in the Barry O’Shea series, Vital to the Defense, is going to be released real soon. I have an advanced copy and I can’t wait to read it!

Keep them coming Mr. Banks.

By Carlotta G. Holton

As an avid fan of Arthur Conan Doyle, I found that the game was definitely afoot in this delightfully ripping mystery-within-a-mystery. Author Graham Moore’s debut novel adeptly alternates the action between two time frames, two continents and two heroes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and contemporary Baker Street Irregular, Harold White with the underlying theme of man’s “need to know.”

This well-crafted novel begins with Arthur Conan Doyle struggling with the best way to kill off Sherlock Holmes so that he can begin writing historical fiction. The year is 1893. When Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty go over the Reichenbach Falls in “The Final Problem,” Doyle is shocked to encounter anger and hostility from the English people who don black armbands in mourning for the fictional character.

The action shifts to the present at a convention of Sherlock scholars known as the Baker Street Irregulars who have gathered to share in the discovery of a long-lost diary of Doyle’s that has been found by member Alex Cale. For decades scholars have wondered what events/experiences prompted Doyle to resurrect Holmes in 1901 in “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Would those exploits be detailed in the missing diary?

Also making his entrance into the society is Harold White, a freelance literary researcher by trade, who briefly meets Cale and then finds him murdered in a hotel suite. The alleged diary, which was in his possession, is not found. A la Doyle’s short story, A Study in Scarlet, the present- day- killer has left the word “elementary” written in blood on the wall.

Enter Doyle’s great-grandson, Sebastian, who hires White to solve the murder and find the diary. Employing Holmes’ skills of deduction, White assumes the challenge. Alternating chapters track Doyle’s seven year hiatus from Holmes as he begins his own manhunt for a serial killer during the Victorian era. Assuming the traits of his own creation, Sherlock, he invites his friend and author, Bram Stoker to be his real-life Watson as they follow the trail of a savage murderer of women connected to the suffragette movement in London’s East End. Moore effectively intersects the parallel stories.

While The Sherlockian is a work of fiction, the murder of an Irregular is based on an incident in 2004 in which a Sherlockian was found dead after claiming he had found Doyle’s lost papers. In this fast-paced and engrossing novel Moore effectively mixes historical fiction and contemporary detection. Both heroes – Doyle in Victorian London and Harold in the 21st century get to practice Holmes’ techniques. Along the trail we are treated to glimpses and references of Holmes’ cases such as A Study in Scarlet, The Adventure of the Illustrious Client and The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge, a technique sure to please not only Doyle’s fans, but new readers as well.

The Sherlockian is a wonderful read celebrating the cleverness of its author while offering a nostalgic appreciation of all that was Victorian - hansom cabs, fog- covered- cobblestone streets, the female fight for equality and the invention of electric lighting symbolic of Doyle’s life and writings. The author also successfully manages to evoke sadness for the loss of Victorian antiquity. Doyle laments the passage of the significant era when he tells Stoker, “what saddens me is not the passing of time but the curious sensation of being aware of it as it happens.” Stoker responds to him: “realism is fleeting. It’s the romance that will live forever.”

Moore comments on the genre of the mystery novel. Stressing the power of a tale well told, he maintains that humanity craves solutions. Harold addresses his love for the genre to his companion, Sara. “Can you write a mystery story that ends with uncertainty? Where you never know who really did it? You can, but it’s unsatisfying. It’s unpleasant for the reader. There needs to be something at the end, some sort of resolution… It’s that the reader needs to know. .. That’s what I love about Holmes. That the answers are so elegant and the world he lives in so ordered and rational. It’s beautiful.”

Like the new electric lights that paved the way into Doyle’s 20th century, readers continue to need to be illuminated by the truth. And Harold White is our very own contemporary Sherlock Holmes. Well done, Mr. Moore!

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead,Vampire Resurrection, and Deadly Innocence and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By Colin Conway

Spring has only just sprung, but I’m already looking into books for beach reading. In my search for stories to be enjoyed on the sand I found Glenn Ickler’s A Deadly Vineyard. The book takes place on the beautiful beaches of Martha’s Vineyard. And even though I was in an office in Pittsburgh watching the snow outside, reading this book I was transported to a beautiful beach town. What I found on the pages was an interesting combination that could make for decent seaside entertainment.

This is not the first book featuring these characters and the depth of their connections is obvious. Even the cat Sherlock Holmes has a history and a distinct personality. As the mystery unfolds these connections are tested. The mystery that the characters try to solve is complex and gripping. Something is always afoot, and so the story moves rapidly. What is most interesting aside from the murder is the main character and his relationship woes. Mitch is a middle aged cat owner in a long distance relationship. Needless to say he is anything but typical. What interested me most in Mitch was the fact that he was very openly flawed. The author did not try to make Mitch into this super noble figure who always does the right thing, but instead Mitch is tempted in the book, and sometimes he does not resist temptation. I was angry at Mitch when he failed to act in the most honorable way possible, but that just goes to show how attached I became to him.

I make puns sometimes. I think I learned it from my dad. Puns are his bread and butter. I always thought that no one could love puns more than dad. That was until I read A Deadly Vineyard. If puns are my dad’s bread and butter, then for Glenn Ickler they are the very air he breathes. Every ten or fifteen pages a few of the characters would get in verbal sparring matches that made me laugh out loud, chuckle or sometimes roll my eyes. Within the first ten pages we are given this little exchange, “ ‘Look at this—the guy’s name is Wade Waters,’ Dave said. ‘Is that a perfect name for a diver or what?’ ‘Great for a guy hunting for liquid assets,’ I said. ‘He sounds all wet to me,’ Al said. ‘Probably made up that name,’ I said. ‘You know, kind of a pseudo-swim.’ ‘I’m going to bail out of here if you guys don’t dry up,’ Dave said.” That’s just a taste of what comes up over the next 212 pages. The puns come fast and frequent in this story and go a long way to lighten the mood and move the story along.

This book presents an interesting mystery and lets the reader observe a set of complex characters trying to solve it. Glenn Ickler will have you amazed at the sheer number of puns he can cram into the pages of this book. So head to the beach and prepare to be intrigued and amused by A Deadly Vineyard.

My name is Colin Conway and I’m from Abington, Pennsylvania. I’m a senior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in Fiction Writing and English Literature. I enjoy writing short stories and not so short novels. I like to run and take Judo to stay in shape. In the future I hope to find a job at a publishing company or literary magazine writing about books and the publishing industry.

By Colin Conway

I needed a good book to distract me. Distract me from what? I had three boxes of Thin Mints, and the way I was going through them they weren’t surviving the week. To distract me from my cookie binge I turned to The Case of: The Silent Witness by W. Robert Wallis and Patrick M. Wallis.

To divert my mind I needed a novel that was both entertaining and cerebral. The Silent Witness proved to be just that. I was intrigued by this book because it was not your classic detective novel, nor was it a police procedural, but rather it was a mix of the two. The novel was made even better by the fact that it wasn’t just focused on the investigator or who done it. The book took time to develop all of the characters involved so that I understood what exactly each character had invested in the mystery.

Something I loved about this book was the fact that it was a type of ‘cold case’ novel. The story begins in 1953 with the disappearance of a young girl, and goes all the way through 1988 when the detectives are finally close to figuring out what happened all those years ago. One of the authors’ strongest assets was the fact that since they did get me invested in the characters I couldn’t help but care about their growth. The characters retained their core attributes over the years, but they added more layers as they faced hardship and loss. One of the most important elements of this novel was the relationship between the main characters Mac and Merrill. Their friendship is something solid that the reader can use to anchor themselves in while mystery swirls around.

This book was an excellent mystery novel and there was nothing to complain about up until the very end. Two things made me sit up and say, “Waych uh Mummut” (that’s ‘wait a minute’ with a mouth full of Thin Mints). Without giving anything away I will say that there is a fairly major plot hole that becomes apparent only when the story is almost over. Considering the plot hole I felt like this mystery, which had baffled the characters for so long, should have been solved fairly easily by the detectives had they done the most basic investigating. The second thing that made the ending somewhat unsatisfactory is the fact that the main conflict is resolved using a deus ex machina. Considering the skill with which the rest of the story was crafted I was disappointed in the fact that the ending seemed to lack the attention and care evident in the rest of the book.

All in all, this book did its job. I was able to lose myself in the story and walk along with the characters as they tried to figure out the truth. Thanks to this intriguing mystery I was able to forget all about my chocolate covered vice. Now, however, I need a new novel to distract me from the painful realization that I have no more Thin Mints, truly a frightening revelation. I’m giving this book the go-ahead for someone looking for a good read, or for anyone who needs to forget that they just consumed ten times their daily allotment of sugar.

My name is Colin Conway and I’m from Abington, Pennsylvania. I’m a senior at the University of Pittsburgh majoring in Fiction Writing and English Literature. I enjoy writing short stories and not so short novels. I like to run and take Judo to stay in shape. In the future I hope to find a job at a publishing company or literary magazine writing about books and the publishing industry.

By Danielle Bissert

Supernatural by Robert Bostian FREAKED ME OUT!!! I mean that in good way because that is exactly what a ghost story should do. For a moment, I thought I was sitting by a camp fire in the middle of a dark forest listening to ghost stories when all of a sudden Stephen King showed up dressed as a zombie. Bostian is that good. I’m NOT one of those people who love horror and get a kick out of being terrified. For the most part I’m a rational nonbeliever and an enthusiastic fact-checker, so these stories challenged me.

Supernatural has four short stories, each with a different kind of spooky vibe. They’re about normal people who run into some pretty abnormal forces—things I would never, ever want to encounter. My favorite is undoubtedly, “A Gifted Slave Girl.” It takes place in the early 1800s at a slave plantation in the south, where the slaves secretly practice their tribal magic in the dead of night. Mariah, a talented young witch, decides to start a slave rebellion with the help of her magic. She and her posse aren’t alone though. Their patron spirit Azamzel aids them in battle, with catastrophic results. The midnight tribal rituals and supernatural powers really gave me the goose bumps, not to mention the building tension and suspense I endured as I waited for the rebellion to unfold. The thing I found most chilling was Mariah’s “take no prisoners attitude”. She is influenced by the spirit, and this changes her into something inhuman and immoral. She will do anything, and I mean anything, to win. I don’t want this girl coming after me!!!

Bostian’s stories are fascinating because of the human element. Anyone could throw in some spooky events and other-worldly spirits and have a perfectly scary ghost story. But Bostian sets up these stories so that the humans are the ones causing the damage, spurred on by some supernatural creatures. The stories speak to unbelievable arrogance.

Here’s a hint: This egotistical thinking hurts not only the person causing the trouble, but everyone around them. The stories screamed warnings to me:

• Don’t trust something you don’t understand!
• Don’t mess around with forces you can’t control!
• Don’t open your door if you don’t know who or what is knocking.

I definitely learned my lesson, and if I ever see anything spooky going on in real life, thanks to Supernatural I know I’m running straight home, speaking to no one, and locking my door!

By Carlotta G. Holton

In the years after World War II many immigrants came to America. As a result ethnic neighborhoods sprung up across the country. One such area was Brooklyn, New York. Enter book keeper Eilis Lacey a young woman who cannot find work in Ireland and who leaves her mother and sister behind in Enniscorthy – the author’s native land - to pursue a new life in America.

There isn’t much action in the first third of this character-driven coming- of- age- novel about the experiences of Lacey. And while the story of immigration and the resulting struggles and determination of those who have resettled has a rich premise, I found such development sadly lacking. There was little in the way of conflict/resolution of her story and consequently, I had little sympathy for her. Since it was her well meaning older sister, Rose and her mother with the help of their family priest Father Flood who initiated her move, there was no struggle for her to get here. Despite a trying ocean voyage, once on American soil, she stepped into a job in a department store on Fulton Street, a position procured for her ahead of time. Similarly it was arranged for her to return to school to earn an accounting certificate and stay in a boarding house run by an Irishwoman. She did not go hungry nor lack shelter. Nor could I believe any serious sense of homesickness.

When the news comes of a death in her family, she returns to Ireland. Not once did I get the sense that she was “torn” with indecision as to whether to stay in her homeland or return to her work and her fiancé in America. Back in Ireland she reflects on Tony, who is “part of a dream from which she had woken,” while when she’s in New York it was Ireland which was “a strange, hazy dream.” I believe this is part of assimilation, something any transplant must face.

While my curiosity was piqued by the ethnic differences between Irish Lacey and her Italian-American- born fiancé, Tony, I was disappointed in the sophomoric descriptions of intimacy between the two which at best were belittling to the adult reader. I found this more appropriate for young adult fiction. Perhaps this is because it is written by a man trying to give a woman’s point of view.

On a secondary level Toibin tackles the lack of communication between members of her family in the old country quite well. Eilis is never told by her mother that she will be missed. Eilis “would have given anything to be able to say plainly that she did not want to go, that Rose could go instead.” But the Lacey women do not speak candidly to one another. “They could do everything,” Toibin writes, “except say out loud what it was they were thinking.” In the same vein, Rose never discloses the fact that she is ill and Ellis never shares her secret marriage.

Where Toibin fails to create a sympathetic character facing a conflict, he is more successful in recreating the Brooklyn of the 1950’s including experiences at Coney Island and Ebbets field. For a brief scene he describes how the sales girls were instructed to show black women nylon hosiery. Implicit in the storyline is that ethnicities stick together.

While Brooklyn was an easy read, I found the story mundane and uninspiring. Because of the passivity of the protagonist, Eilis, it is hardly a tribute to the many men and women who traded their homes for America.

Carlotta Holton is the author of Salem Pact, Touching The Dead,Vampire Resurrection, and Deadly Innocence and is a member of the National Federation of Press Women and an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association.

By Brittnee Alford

After reading the DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown I was hooked on the thriller/suspense/mystery/conspiracy theme. Since I enjoy Brown’s writing style, which is fun and interesting, The Lost Symbol was a must-read for me.

Brown pushed me to the brink of believing, if only temporarily, that the world is filled with conspiracies and that there is mystical power in ancient rituals like turning “lead into gold.” He took me into the depths of some of the world’s oldest rituals, and gave me a front row seat (well that’s what it felt like). After I read Brown, I found myself web-hopping to sites on Freemasons, Egyptian Mysteries and Noetic Sciences. Curiosity got the best of me and I just couldn’t help the urge to search for more.

When Brown failed to connect all of the conspiracy theories that he described, it was a huge turn-off. For instance, he just briefly mentions the Mysteries System, and doesn’t really explain how it connects back to the Freemasons. He pulled me out of the story and I found myself going back to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I shouldn’t have had to miss out on the ride, because I needed to stop and make sure there was enough gas in the tank.

Overall, I walked away satisfied and definitely enjoyed the climax! I literally unfastened my seatbelt and stopped the car, because I had to pull myself together. My emotions were flying everywhere. Once I got back in, I was pleased with what was left, and I enjoyed yet another thrill ride with Dan Brown.