Apex Review Of The Mountain Devils (Connor de Bruler)

July 6, 2015 - PRLog -- Bodies mutilated beyond recognition are piling up in the wilderness of the rural American South, and few authorities seem willing—or prepared—to risk their lives pursuing the predators.

But a small band of local vigilantes have their own plans…

When Erik—a former Marine with South African roots—crosses paths with Cassandra—a Mexican journalist and truth-seeker with a personal vendetta—they fall in love, and into the radar of a madman conspiring against them.  The unlikely pair—both battle-hardened from the tribulations of their own dark pasts—must join forces to wage a war that pushes the limits of their mortality and sanity.

From shotgun-wielding backwoods outlaws to supernatural creatures of the night, the world that Erik and Cassandra must travel is infested with nasty characters from all across the spectrum of evil.

Character-driven third-person narration digs deep into the psychological flesh of the major cast, antagonists and protagonists alike. No character is innocent--all are flawed, deceptive, and tainted in their own ways.  Some are unstable, chaotic, and corrupt beyond any point of salvation; others are resilient, calculating, and fueled by a burning hunger for revenge and personal justice.

The vivid, brutal, and grotesque acts of violence in rural Tennessee and the Mexico City slums leave searing images in the mind long after the book is closed.  Many scenes evoke cinematic qualities—a car chase, a bar confrontation, and a speeding van full of abductees with the driver singing classic rock—in these, the pacing slows and the sensory details become amplified.

The present action is also interspersed with dream sequences, hallucinations, and memories forever swimming in the periphery of Erik’s and Cassandra’s subconscious recesses.  While the point-of-view usually alternates between Erik and Cassandra, it occasionally shifts to the eccentric reverend of a local church, a mysterious teenage girl, and several other characters, each with important roles in the storyline.

Metafictive devices are used frequently in the novel.  The family history of the story’s nocturnal beings is partially unveiled in imaginative sequences of historically-inspired exposition.  The elements of mystery and folklore are important ingredients in the traditional fantasy style, differing from the contemporary trends of singularly-focused narratives that concentrate on the present. The character dialogue often contains personal anecdotes—some are specifically intended to foreshadow later events, while others serve character and world-building purposes. And finally, writer and journalist Cassandra Jimenez constantly interprets the ebb and flow of the criminal underworld as she experiences it, scrawling stories in her notebook along the way.  Her Encrucijada del sur series is vitally important, as several excerpts from the work unlock information directly connected to the later story.

The novel is broken into thirds—labeled simply Part One, Two, and Three—that follow chronologically.  Major transitions and plot-altering circumstances are exposed at the beginnings of these sections.  While the chronology follows intuitively, it’s crucial that readers give full attention to all of the conversations, letters, memories, journal entries, and exposition woven into the main narrative. The pieces suddenly lock into place, and we’re catapulted into a surreal finale full of twists, turns, shocks, and a final rush of revelation and resolution.

As a horror/adventure hybrid with elements of Southern Gothic, paranormal fantasy, and Balkan folklore mixed in, The Mountain Devils forges a path through uncharted territory in the literary realm.