Thursday, May 14, 2015

Note To Self, Globe Trotting Serial Killer

Allow this blog entry to serve as a supplement to my literature review, which I posted last April 30th.  In "Suicide the Hard Way," Christopher Alan Broadstone penned several short works which ran the spectrum in delivering unique ways to scare the pants off of us.  I am looking forward to reviewing Mr. Broadstone's next collection of stories, which I hope "Note To Self" is featured in.  So...let us plow into a heart-warming tale of a brutal serial killer who is always ten steps ahead of the police.
A serial killer, who has perhaps killed hundreds of innocents is our featured character today.  He has medical school training, and uses surgical tools while plying his craft.  His victims are totally unsuspecting, and to the police....100% random.  Oh yes....our genius fiend (...and his IQ is likely off the charts)...is anything but random.  In his collection of nasty tools is a device (...or...thing) of perhaps supernatural and/or astrological nature which guides him.  Unlike most serial killers we meet in literature, or film, the victims of our fiend aren't isolated to college campuses, or truck stops, or small towns.  This guy will invade the bowels of third-world war-zones or the depths of the oceans in selecting his prey.
Remember, the author is a guy named Broadstone.  This, in short, means that the horror will be thrust upon you from directions we don't suspect.  The subject matter is horrific enough.  Killings, gore, nubile and naive victims, ominous stalkings....all those would have been fine and satisfying.  However cliche, those are cliches that work in horror fiction.  In "Note To Self" however, though all the aforementioned devices are omnipresent, the scares emanate from the journey being undertaken by the "monster."  As our killer embarks on a twisted quest, his journey and mindset are the elements that unnerve us.  Whether in the bosom of a benign tribe of Bedouins, or sojourning through a chaotic Cairo, Mr. Broadstone ensures that we the reader will find no comfort, or reprieve from  horror, in "Note To Self."  Even the beautiful, clear waters of the Mediterranean and angelic setting of Cyprus, as penned by our author, are received in a very unsettling  manner by the reader.
The reader has a choice, and how he/she chooses may also be a source of horror.  Is our killer conveying facts?  Are the monstrous facts and circumstances guiding his plight actually real...and actually happening?  Or are they products of a mind that has lost all attachment to rational thought?  You'll have to catch yourself, as the temptation to view this fiend as a protagonist will be great.  "Note to Self" is currently available at Amazon (including the kindle edition) in "Journals of Horror: Found Fiction" which is edited by Terry M. West.(http://t.co/96Rdk4sTJn )

1 comment:

  1. Awesome writer. He can take you places you never new.

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