Review of The Burn Palace by Stephen Dobyns
5 stars
Reviewed via NetGalley
I reviewed a complimentary copy of this in e-book format
provided by the publisher via NetGalley.
Back in 1997, I read “Church of Dead Girls” and discovered the
special imagination of author Stephen Dobyns. A writer who peels away the
layers of his characters while simultaneously balancing a vast cast, Mr. Dobyns
writes literate horror in a tapestry with multiple plotlines and story threads.
In this novel, the Rhode Island community of Brewster, once a peaceful,
gossipy, quiet town, becomes a character in its own right, as fear and terror
and hate and crime devolve it in a status probably similar to that of Salem
during the witch-hunt hysteria.
The citizens of Brewster and the law enforcement officers
called into to police the community must decide for themselves whether the
ongoing events are human-based, or Supernatural in origin. Certainly they are
odd enough to be Supernatural: a newborn abducted from the local community
hospital’s neonatal nursery, and replaced with a corn snake stolen from a local
boy; bonfires in the woods containing evidences of human bones; multiple deaths
at the local convalescent care which statistically exceed the expected
quantity; adolescent girls raped in Satanic rituals in order to harvest the
newborns; and hate crimes against the local Wiccans. It isn’t long before the
town descends into near mass hysteria, pitting neighbor against neighbor, all
citizens suspicious of the police’s failure to solve the crimes and to protect
the populace.
In the end, “The Burn Palace” will delight and engross the
reader and linger in the mind long after the final page is turned.
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