Ulas Bilgenoglu Bilgenoglu itibaren Pobirka, Vinnyts'ka oblast, Ukrayna itibaren Pobirka, Vinnyts'ka oblast, Ukrayna

A very intriguing outlook on something not many of us have experience with.

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This review originally appeared in FANGORIA and GOREZONE Jack Kilborn's AFRAID (Book Review) Thursday, 09 April 2009 07:15 Vince Darcangelo BOOKS Some horror novels go for the mind, others the gut. Jack Kilborn’s AFRAID goes for the groin. It goes for the knees. It goes for the heart. It punches out your teeth and makes you swallow them. Then it goes after your family. A mysterious helicopter crash in the remote Wisconsin town of Safe Haven leads to a rash of grisly murders. The townsfolk are tortured and exterminated by an elite, almost supernatural military strike team, but nobody knows why. Turns out the crash was no accident, and Safe Haven harbors a dark secret spanning decades and continents. Unfolding in the course of about 12 hours, AFRAID is non-stop action that never lets you come up for air. Aside from a few digressions, this book is noticeably lacking in exposition, there are no chapter breaks. And it is better for it. The characters do not have time to think, only react. Neither does the reader. The reader is set on edge and never allowed to relax. AFRAID quickly becomes an obsession. I read this book in a day. I had to. Dark corners? This book is loaded with them. One of the most memorable is a junior high school gymnasium transformed into a charnel house. In one of the most gruesome sequences, a townswoman stumbles upon the atrocities taking place in the locker room. In an attempt to escape she accidentally gets stuck in the killer’s lair, hanging upside down from the ceiling, swaying back and forth above a stack of corpses. “The creaking got closer and all she could do was hang there, like a piñata waiting for the stick.” (148) FYI: Kilborn is the pseudonym for mystery author JA Konrath, and AFRAID is his horror debut. To say Kilborn has come out swinging is an understatement. This isn’t just another retread spook tale. AFRAID is a horror novel on crystal meth. Get this book. Then call in sick. Skip class. Shut off the phone. Light the candles. And crack open AFRAID. You’ll read until your eyes hurt. And then you’ll keep reading. That’s what I did. 3 1/2 skulls