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THE COLORS OF HELL (colours)

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The Colors Of Hell 281pgs.
by Michael Paine
Review by SpeekNDaTruuf

When it comes to novels, if there's one thing that I hate worse than a poorly written book, it's got to be a great tale with a poorly written ending. I found this in The Colors Of Hell by Michael Paine. This novel is written in three sections, and I will rate this novel based on these three sections.

Part One, "In The Anti-Atlas: 1958", begins in L'Hotel Grand, Marrakesh. Robert Semnarek receives a note from Steve Markham, inviting him to come to the local marketplace where a snake charmer is attempting to sell his cobras to Steve's mother, Charlotte. Later, we find out that Mr. Semnarek (who I'll commonly refer to as Robert) is Charlotte Markham's lawyer. Father Markham has passed away some years ago, and in order for Charlotte to receive her inheritance, she must either find her sister, Clare, or find proof that Clare is deceased. So she, along with her son and her lawyer, embark on such a journey.

So how do these three characters end up in L'Hotel Grand? Following a clue from one of Louis Tiffany's, master of stained glass, last written letters ["Marrakesh. L'Hotel Grand. Two windows."], Charlotte, Steve and Robert end up in Morocco. They are, literally, retracing Clare's footsteps.

I guess now would be a good time to mention just a tad bit about this Clare Markham of present. Clare Markham, who now goes by the name Mother Joseph, lives in a convent that has been carved into stone on a cliff. Cut off from the rest of the known world except Bedouins (who every blue moon brings a newspaper). She runs the convent, and there are always 50 nuns. When one dies, then someone else shows up to make it an even 50.

Charlotte, Steve and Robert arrive at the convent, and, being the lawyer, Robert is designated to go speak with Mother Joseph (who he doesn't know is Clare Markham just yet). When he gets there, Joseph reveals to him that she used to be Clare Markham and that she has no real interest in the nine million dollars of her father's estate. The only problem is that she's still alive, and she's not interested in really "giving in". After several visits, Robert, who has been prodding Joseph about seeing her sister, is told that the reason Joseph doesn't want to see her sister is because she's written a memoir. A memoir that should have quelled all of her apprehension about her past life. A memoir that supposedly cleansed her, helped her forgive and forget her past. Of course, after another couple of chapters, Steve, the "experienced rock climber", climbs the cliff, enters the convent and steals the memoir. (And falls in love with a Sister Martin, an epileptic prophetess who just happens to be the offspring of one of the couples in this novel, but I think I've already given it away, so oops!) Thus, leading us into Part Two.

What I loved most about this section was that it captured me from the very beginning. I was drawn into its vivid imagery, its amazing detail when dealing with architect and landscape. Paine is obviously a historian and a researcher, and being that myself (albeit on a much smaller level), I can appreciate his taste.

Part Two, "The Glass Apostles", is Mother Joseph/Clare Markham's memoir. In this memoir, she tells of how she first began working under Louis Tiffany at Tiffany Studios, and how she met Marty Kampinski, who first introduced himself as the "Chairman". We also learn of her desire to produce stained glass windows, and, even though she wants to do floral designs, as an apprentice, she is assigned to church venues.

For one particular church, she has been commissioned to make Satan in Hell. She thinks she's captured it perfectly until Mr. Tiffany alters it. Instead of Satan being in Hell, Tiffany's now replaced the face with that of God's. Perfection? Not yet. There's something missing. What can it be? TEARS! God crying over His lost souls. So, Clare agonizes over how to incorporate tears into the flesh-toned stained glass window, and after quite some time, she comes across a method. Voila! The stained glass is perfect (by her standards).

While working on this project, however, Mr. Tiffany invites both Clare and Marty to Laurelton Hall, his beautiful home. It is there that the two are both introduced to the "blood glass", the reddest glass imaginable, thought to be created from the blood of the Apostles. It can penetrate skin without cutting the skin, which means that there is no hole where the glass has entered your hand and there is no blood protruding from said hole. Here, Mr. Tiffany tells the two, who've been dating might I add, that he wants them to find all of the "blood glass" and to return it to him.

Clare and Marty set out on a journey, the one that Charlotte, Steve and Robert set upon themselves no doubt, to find this "blood glass". While in various cities, and utilizing various modes of transportation, the "blood glass" takes on a different 'feeling'. While upon a ship, Clare is getting comfortable with a gentleman, and while they are asleep in her bed, the "blood glass" lays on the table beside the bed. The gentleman wakes up, only after having the "blood glass" cut him. Now, how can this be when, at Laurelton Hall, we found out that the "blood glass" didn't cut? Hrmm... We don't learn this until later.

To make a long story short, there is something fishy about this "blood glass". Somehow, people in different cities (wherever Clare and Marty venture) are ending up dead, their eyeballs removed and their throats sliced. The two are collecting all of the "blood glass", sending all but one piece back to Mr. Tiffany. With research, they find out that there's a piece of the "blood glass", supposedly Jesus's "blood glass", at this convent in the Anti-Atlas Mountains. Without giving too much away, the two go there *heh* And we also find out how the deaths have been occuring in those different cities. Also, one of the two end up dead. Well, through the process of elimination, we know it's not Clare Markham, since she's Mother Joseph *lol* Nonetheless, we enter Part Three.

Again, what I loved most about this section was the attention to detail and the history. Paine, if nothing else, is a great historian. What I didn't quite understand was the homosexual references in this section. Marty, who's supposedly in love with Clare (has proposed to her at least three times, I know), keeps flirting with the men. Hrmm... I didn't know if I was reading that right or not. But, doing some research of my own **poppin' collar**, I learned that Paine writes "gay horror novels". That's how it was worded. So that accounted for the homosexual references I found in this section. Ah-ha! A little bit of research goes a long way **head nod**

Part Three, "Shattered", pieces all of it together. Charlotte, Steve and Robert now know the deal with Mother Joseph, and Mother Joseph now knows that the three have stolen her memoir. And, I must stop there. If I were to continue, I'd give it all away, I think. Needless to say, this was the section I hated the most. The ending was, for lack of a better word, DUMB. I stayed up till quarter to three, reading this novel, because the first two sections literally pulled me in. And then I got to this part and was like "What the *insert expletive here*?!?"

Overall, I would give this novel TWO AND A HALF STARS, simply because the first two sections were amazing. The last section, though, frustrated me to no end. Again, I say, it was DUMB. But Paine did a pretty awesome job in the first two sections, so I guess I can't be too harsh of a critic. I'm just saying, though... How you gonna pull me in on the first two sections, and then leave me dumbfounded in the last? Ugh. He gets a yuck-face for that. Oh, and two and a half stars *smile*

Right away you know that you are in for something unusual in "The Colors Of Hell", a historical horror novel, as the first part of the novel takes place in the year 1958. Hey, my birth year, I always knew I was special. Ahem, anyway, lawyer Robert Semnarek, his client Charlotte Alderson and her son Steve are in Marrakesh looking for any trace of Charlotte's sister, ex-Tiffany stained glass designer, artist, and forger Clare Markham, who with her male companion Marty Kampinski, had disappeared somewhere in this area sometime in the late nineteen twenties. They get a lead and travel to an isolated mountain range where there is an odd and even more isolated Catholic nunnery where there might be some information as to Clare and Marty's fate.

"The Colors Of Hell" is a novel in three distinct parts. In the first part of this novel, we learn of the existence a special shard of stained glass that Louis Tiffany owns that can pierce flesh without drawing blood or leaving a wound, and which has strange glow to it. It is rumored that the shard was forged with the blood of one of Christ's apostles. Clare and Marty had disappeared while searching for more shards of the blood glass. In the second part of "The Colors Of Hell" Robert and company arrive at the nunnery and discover that there exists a journal that tells of Clare and Marty's journey to discover more of the fragments of the blood glass. It's not pretty.

The third part returns us to 1958 as Steve is acting like a vacuous, spoiled, undisciplined fool and decides that he wants to have sex with a young epileptic nun who turns out to be his cousin. The tension builds as Charlotte and Mother Joseph spar with each other; Steve keeps sneaking into the nunnery to romance Sister Martin, and Robert tries to do his job and mediate everything. There has been some criticism that I have read that mentioned that Paine's early novels always ended in explosive climaxes, and in some of my reviews I have mentioned this. With this novel, I'm glad to stand corrected. While a bit abrupt, "The Colors Of Hell" hardly has an apocalyptic ending.

It should be mentioned that the action in this novel is a bit slow . . . real slow. The supernatural elements really don't kick in until the halfway mark, and even then, its mostly minor stuff. What we are stuck with is a historical novel of manners, decadence, droll contempt, and madness. As we read the Clare's journal we gradually realize that Clare is unbalanced. She's emotionally distant, easily upset, and slow to forgive or forget, coming from an unhappy household she takes Louis Tiffany as a father figure. Clare's also depressive, may have a multi-personality, and is possibly homicidal. By part three we realize that "The Colors Of Hell" is just not going to end well for anybody.

The novel has an undercurrent of both blatant and subtle sexual commentary to it. The lead, and many of the minor, males are constantly described as being "beautiful", "angelic" and in other complimentary ways, male homosexuality is condoned while female homosexuality, and ultimately, heterosexuality is punished. Clare herself may be sexually confused, or bi-sexual or asexual, and not in a good way, there is an instance of incest, and all of the women in the nunnery have male names. Although Paine's penchant for passive/aggressive characters is on full display here as is Paine's love of obscure historically based facts and conspiracies. People like Lon Chaney, Dorothy Parker, Louis Tiffany, Governor Al Smith, and others make appearances, as does the post WWI decadent Berlin.

This is marketed as a novel of screaming horror and it is not. The supernatural in this weird quest/adventure novel works fine, but the horror parts seem jarringly shoehorned in just for commercial purposes. Less an extreme horror novel, this is more of an example of quiet horror, a novel of madness, obsession, and social observation and commentary. This is why the gaudy cover is so misleading, it is of a screaming demon reaching through a shattered stained glass window, and why "The Colors Of Hell" is a stupid title for this creepy understated novel; something like "The Blood Glass", a term actually from the novel, would have worked better.

"The Colors Of Hell" was Paine's last novel before he was laid off by the paperback industry, and his next novel wouldn't appear until FIFTEEN YEARS LATER in 2005, and this is the novel that may be referenced in his "Steel Ghosts". If you're looking for a novel of extreme horror stay away, if you're looking for a quiet, (mostly) subtle, and creepy commercial novel of madness and decadence this novel is for you.