written go through: John Matsui
Catholic priest John Wilburn was about to turn 50 and was filling in for a colleague at a church in upstate New York when his day took a worrying turn when a troubled young man walked into the confessional.
The man was haunted by visions of himself torturing and killing people at the university.
Before Father Wilburn could collect his thoughts, the temperature dropped. His breath made the air foggy. The young man’s voice and demeanor changed. He no longer pleaded for help, but relished the coming slaughter.
Just as suddenly as it had begun, the man left the confessional. The priest quickly stepped out of the confessional, hoping to help the young man. He was gone, vanishing with supernatural speed.
New 911 operator Karen Innis takes a call. The caller reports a murder in a sinister hiss. He then describes the scene in detail and triumphantly admits he is the killer.
The caller gloated over his horrific story, leaving Karen speechless. “I’ve never seen so much blood.”
What the caller said next sent shivers down Karen’s spine. “Too bad you can’t see it, Karen.”
He called out her name. As a 911 operator, no one should or could know who she was. The caller hung up, but Karen tracked the call to a local college, Hyde Hall.
Three detectives came to the address provided by Karen. Devon Alexander, Luisa Del Rosa and Lawrence Abrams found a male student brutally murdered and dismembered. His eyes were gouged out, his thumbs and fingers were cut off, and his face was peeled off.
This murder was the beginning of a series of bizarre and equally disturbing mutilations and killings of Hyde Hall students.
The hunt for the murderer has begun. As detectives track down the evidence, they are surprised to find that the second victim is the murderer of the first victim.
This pattern continued with the next homicide victim.
I have mixed feelings about David Blackthorne’s Catalyst of Evil. If you read my description of the beginning of the novel, you’ll see that Blackthorne grabbed me from the beginning.
I loved the premise and the dark twist. After reading the first third of the book, I clearly felt that I was in for a dark, foreboding story worthy of a young Stephen King. Despite some terrible spelling errors and areas that needed professional editing, I devoured the book.
Then the spelling and loose writing got worse and worse.
The parts describing the murders should have horrified me but because the author over explained everything, the repetitive words and scenes lost their impact and I started to feel bothered.
I expected the story to take me into its nightmare, but its sentence structure and slow delivery kept keeping me awake.
As the murder count increases, so do the problems in the story.
Are there too many murders? Yes. As the next victim was hacked to pieces, I began to yawn.
As the murders grow, so does the cast of protagonists. Three detectives (too many) join Father Wilburn, who, it turns out, knows about demons and has the skills to perform exorcisms. OK, I can live with that.
Then the characters went crazy.
There’s a 911 operator named Karen who’s suddenly put on the endangered species list and has some kind of romantic affair going on with Detective No. 1, Devin.
Psychic Heidi Barrett can communicate with demonic forces, providing insights to the team. Police technician Harvey Kline adds even more to the team. Think eccentric computer genius from shows like CSI, Criminal Minds, NCIS, etc.
At the height of the killing fields, we learn about the private lives of the academy’s security guards.
There are so many characters we have to care about. If one of them gets killed, who cares?
It all came together in a mess, and the resolution was not satisfying.
Sorry, but I can only give Catalyst of Evil three stars at this point. If it were rewritten and a top professional editor were hired, Catalyst of Evil could be among the top horror novels.
Order yours here.
score:3/5
