Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Legion by by William Peter Blatty

 LegionOne by one the bizarre murders frustrate and torment Lt. Kinderman , the homicide detective from "The Exorcist". — A boy, crucified;A priest, decapitated; another priest slain;a nurse,slaughtered — All bear the Zodiac mark of the Gemini Killer. — BUT ... the Gemini Killer has been dead for 12 years! — Lt. Kinderman stalks the brutal and elusive killer down the dark streets. Until ,finally, in desperation he dares to cross the boundary that seperates the living from the dead.

This novel was written by the same author as The Exorcist, which guaranteed a great read. It was…just not in the way I expected.
What surprised me most about the novel was that it dealt quite a bit with the nature of good and evil in a philosophical sense. I expected something more like The Exorcist, but this one was an entirely different take on what it means to come face to face with evil. The protagonist, Kinderman, is the same detective as the one in The Exorcist, and even Father Karras makes an appearance (though I won’t tell you how). This ties the novels together which made it very entertaining to read.
What I did expect and didn’t really receive was a fright. The author is so well known for his previous novel, that I truly wanted to be scared, to feel the same atmospheric horror that he did so well in The Exorcist. This one dealt more with the philosophical aspect of what goes bump in the night, so it was, as is expected, slower paced, though quite entertaining.
I do recommend this novel, but be prepared for an unexpected tone and writing style.

    

1 comment:

Gigi Ann said...

Well I guess I'm glad that you enjoyed this book. However I don't read this genre.