Fast-paced and a bit on
the quirky side, The Mouth of the Dark
is another great, new release from the folks at Flame Tree Press who are
proving quite rapidly they are in the business to bring game to the genre. And
bring it, they do.
While not a great fan of
“creature-type” fantasy/horror, I got over that a few chapters into the book
and it developed into quite the page-turner.
The story is simple
enough; Jayce’s daughter has gone missing and he
heads toward the seedy part of town to post some flyers and ask a few
questions. From there, he’s introduced to more strange people than you can
count and also encounters a sort of parallel universe that exists with ours
called “Shadow.” Shadow can only be seen and experienced by a select few and
Shadow is seriously fucked-up in every degradation
imaginable. Think “Labyrinth” meets “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” with a
side order of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Thunderdome”
for dessert.
Tim Waggoner manages to
pull this off deftly and impressively while giving slight clues and promises of
the climax to come when the book hits its high note.
Characters are
interesting, if a bit under-developed, but that’s understandable given the book
takes place in a short time span (a few days from what I could gather, but I
wasn’t reading for that so it didn’t really register until I’d finished). One
character in particular, a dude named “Ohio Pig” is most intense and enjoyable
in a perverse sort of way.
Dialogue is a bit
elongated in places but isn’t overly done or melodramatic. Considering the
circumstances Jayce finds himself in, it could have
gone either way, but Waggoner manages to reel it in to fit the occasions.
The “ah-ha!” moment was
slightly “not-ah-ha!” given the reader gets a fairly obvious precursor to it,
but even with that, it wasn’t one of those, “I saw that coming a mile away”
type of things.
The one thing that
bothered me about this book was the lack of explanation for the appearance and behavior
of the bizarre assortment of creatures occupying Shadow. They were
well-described, but their motives were never clear--you’ll see what I mean the
first time you meet the guy with the green rubber gloves.
Overall, The Mouth of the Dark was an enjoyable
trip into the land of disbelief suspension and certainly worth a read.