Disposable Lit Reviews

Charter Books, 1983/1987
193 pp.
ISBN 0-441-57475-0
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If the first novel was pretty much the “pilot,” then this one is where the series proper begins. Dan Brady, survivor of psychic and physical attack by the mysterious cult Arachne, begins his quest in earnest to find his kidnapped wife and children, with nothing but vague hints to go by.

As is standard for any series work which centers on a conspiracy, Dan’s continuing adventures will all be almost peripherally related to his main quest, each of which ends up giving him a slight further clue to spiral him in toward the nefarious forces at work. (See also the TV shows John Doe and Nowhere Man, each of which went to great lengths to keep the conspiracy from ever coming clearly to the forefront.)

This time around, Brady consults with a psychic met through a contact at his old job in government-sponsored paranormal research. His main goal is to help Angela, his partner-in-investigation in the first novel whose death has trapped her within the psychic fortress of his house. But in reaching out to her, he receives cryptic messages from other spirits stranded in the “Hinterlands” just this side of the Astral Plane, indicating that Arachne is up to another murderous project nearby.

Meanwhile, a handful of people who had vacationed last summer at the small English seaside town of Wansham feel an overwhelming urge to return there in the drizzly spring. And then they arrive, one by one, they’re met by a jovial old man who cheerfully chops them apart with a Viking axe.

It’s a case of possession, as the restless soul an ancient Viking warrior who brought a powerful talisman to the English coastline and was betrayed has been revived to help them locate the talisman for Arachne’s darker purposes. But the warrior’s ghost has other plans which revolve around vengeance, and through possessing the vacationers who were nearby when he was first summoned, he goes on a rampage which confuses old wrongs with living faces and poses a deadly threat to the loved ones of the possessed.

This novel flows more smoothly than the first, as there isn’t the weight of exposition or setup to put the whole scenario in place. The trade-off is obviously that there’s no resolution to Brady’s larger storyline, only clues that his family is still alive and somehow useful to Arachne. As long as the individual adventures are good, though, and don’t seem to much like they’re treading water, I’m happy to continue enjoying the tortured hell that is Dan Brady.

Nathan Shumate