Posts Tagged ‘J.A. Konrath’


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Draculas by Crouch, Kilborn, Strand and Wilson

October 18, 2010 by Elizabeth A. White  •
Draculas by Crouch, Kilborn, Strand and WilsonHe was the first. He’d been infected by the original source. That made him special. He knew he was going to change into something else. Something more powerful than what he already was. Something that would allow him to infect the whole world. – Mortimer Moorecook

If you like your vampires well mannered, well dressed, sophisticated and seductive… run in the other direction as fast as your legs will carry you.

On the other hand, if you like your vampires the old fashioned way, rude and ridiculously full of fangs and attitude, wreaking gory indiscriminate havoc on everyone in their path, Draculas is definitely the book for you.

Retired billionaire Mortimer Moorecook is dying of cancer. Convinced it has the power to somehow cure him, Mortimer purchases a hominoid skull with elongated teeth – dubbed the “Dracula Skull” by the press – which was discovered in a farmer’s field in the Romanian countryside.

Upon receipt of the skull he uses it to bite himself in the neck… and promptly goes into convulsions before being whisked off to rural, out in the sticks Blessed Crucifixion Hospital. Once there he dies on the table in the E.R. Or does he? (more…)

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Afraid by Jack Kilborn

March 20, 2009 by Elizabeth A. White  •

Safe Haven, Wisconsin. Population 907. . . 906. . . 905. . .

Afraid by Jack KilbornNothing ever happens in Safe Haven, Wisconsin, a sleepy little town isolated from neighboring towns by thick woods and accessible by only a single road in and out. And that’s the way the 907 residents of Safe Haven like it… until that idyllic isolation turns into their worst nightmare.

On a peaceful evening under a hunter’s moon an explosion lights up the sky as a helicopter carrying a Red Ops military unit crashes into the woods just outside of town. The Red-Ops team is made up of psychopathic killers who have been scientifically enhanced and specially trained to exploit their individual perversions for military objectives. Unfortunately for the town’s residents, the Red-Ops team survives the crash, descends upon the town, cuts them off from the outside world, and unleashes utter destruction on everyone and everything in their path.

In the face of brutal circumstances thrust upon them, ordinary people are forced to confront their beliefs and to look deep within themselves to see what they are really made of. What does the lifelong supporter of Amnesty International do when violence threatens her child? How does the fireman who has never had to do anything heroic in his sleepy little Midwestern town react? And if you’re the Sheriff who’s old and alone, beaten and broken, do you give up and lay down, or do you keep putting one foot in front of the other because people are counting on you to do so? Such are the soul testing situations the hapless people of Safe Haven find themselves facing.

The relentless pace and extreme terror of Afraid are the hooks being used to promote this book, justifiably so, but if you focus a little deeper there’s much more going on here than just a scary story. Kudos to Mr. Kilborn for creating a genuinely terrifying story that actually has depth to go with its death and destruction.

To learn more about Jack Kilborn, visit his website.