(book) Graham Masterton – ‘The Pariah’

This webzine is full of Graham Masterton book reviews. The reason is that I love this horror author so much and I read really a lot of his novels, almost everything he wrote. Well, the time has come for ‘The Pariah’ to be read and grace the pages of this webzine. John Trenton lives in Granitehead, a little New England place near famous Salem, where all those witch trials took place and people were executed. John lost his wife Jane and unborn son in a tragic accident short while ago. But, Jane is not lost and somehow connects with John and talks to him through her scary apparitions. John has an antique store and buys a painting of long lost ship called ‘David Dark’ which apparently sunk in the waters near Granitehead. John realizes that he is not the only one who sees dead relatives in Granitehead and grisly deaths start to happen to those who see the dead. John realizes with help of local historians that there is something in the sunken ship which causes dead to rise and must try to stop it.

I can safely say that this one is one of Masterton’s best works I have read yet and I have read many believe me. This is constant chilling atmosphere, grey New England is a perfect place for horror to happen and finale is just epic and fighting the demon is something best I have read ever. John and other characters are fluidly written, there is no filler pages or boring parts that you read in order to get to the interesting ones again. No, this one is tour de force in horror novel. There are some really gory parts and there are some explicit sexual parts like we are used to with Masterton works. This is a mixture of gothic ghost story, demons, gore and walking dead. Just perfect!