Black Static

While I've not been blown away by what little I've seen of the work they produce individually, when Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes get together the result is never less than entertaining. Case in point the novel Night Wraith, released by Short, Scary Tales Publications back in 2016 as a signed, limited edition hardcover.

The town of Carson Lake is menaced by a monster that has a thing for tearing apart young people. Police Chief Gavin Wagner is stumped, though he suspects it might be something to do with his deceased wife. Elizabeth Wagner suffered from depression and sought help from occultist and healer Davis Crowley, starting an affair with him. Later she committed suicide and Davis disappeared, never to be seen again, according to his official partner, Vanessa, a powerful witch. Wagner's teenage daughter Carly has troubles of her own. Cheerleader Sadie is trying to come between her and boyfriend Ethan, while best friend Abigail has got involved with witchcraft and thinks she might be responsible for the death of her father Holman.

This is American small town horror at its best, the kind of thing Stephen King does so well when he's firing on all cylinders. Fulbright and Hawkes aren't quite at that level, but what they do provide is entertaining in its own right. Carson Lake comes over as a fully rounded community, one with sufficient depth that the reader feels it has a life outside of the pages of the book. There's a cast of intriguing characters, with adult angst competing with teen hormones to drive the plot forward. In the first camp we have Chief Wagner, still grieving his deceased wife, wondering what he could have done differently and feeling a touch of guilt now that he's moving on with his life and has allowed new partner Karen into his heart. And in the latter camp there's Carly and her friends/enemies, with all the rivalries of high school and assorted doubts about finding their place in the world. There's an element of cliché in the person of Sadie and her entourage, the archetypal mean girls, but I suppose there's a basis in reality for the cliché; regardless it's easy to hate these bullies and be, if only a little, gratified at the gory comeuppance meted out to them. The witchcraft element introduces another dimension, in the figures of Vanessa and Davis Crowley showing how evil can take many forms. There are plenty of twists to the plot, all of them solidly grounded in the psychology of the characters, and the action scenes are done with relish, blood geysering in all directions as the wraith wreaks havoc, contorting bodies and tearing flesh.

Night Wraith is not a classic, but it is a fast paced and fun novel, one that rewards the reading and, even if it doesn't bring anything new to the table, takes familiar ingredients and whips them up into a tasty dish. I had a good time with it.