Customer Reviews

The Ghost of Silver Cliff

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Avid readers like myself know the feeling......You're bored, something catches your eye....You decide to pick it up, despite the fact that you've never heard of the Author. There's just something about it that makes you want to give it a try....

Most times, there's a good reason why you've never heard of the Author. But once in a while...Very rarely, just rarely enough to make such occasions special....You stumble onto a real gem. That was the case with my first brush with Shoto Press, "Garlands of Moonlight", by Jai Sen and Rizky Wasisto Edi, a smashing debut that told the story of a small village in the grip of an unspeakable evil. Great writing, great art, great production values....Garlands had it all! I had both high hopes and worry about being let down when I heard about the follow-up, "The Ghost of Silver Cliff". Shouldn't have worried...

I was expecting a story in a similar vein, and was happily surprised to see Ghost is a sequel/continuation to Garlands of Moonlight. The book starts off with the two main characters from Garlands confronting the evil that is terrorizing their village, and from there goes off in a totally new direction, making these two characters a kind of Malay Scully/Mulder team; Their adventure this time is more of a mystery than Garlands, and the final revelation of the identity of the killer is just superb. I understand that there are supposed to be 10 volumes in the Malay Mysteries series. That's 9 more than I was expecting, but it still won't be enough to satisfy me if all involved keep up this level of quality. Highly recommended!

Marsiti, the Juma woman, continues from the previous book by the team of Sen and Edi. Although this small book tells a separate ghostly story, the authors have connected it neatly to the ending of "Garlands of Moonlight," without making the previous book into required reading for this one.

Local legend tells of a girl's spirit locked into a cliff face, and of the mysterious deaths that drove the rapacious Dutch from their island. Mariti's otherwordly sense detects something, but no evil presences. Her sense must be wrong, somehow, because people die in the horrific ways predicted by local legend. Even Hidayat, her assistant, is attacked, but survives because of Marsiti's intervention. Still, she detects no evil spirit, even when she sees the glowing black form for herself. And still, she detects something ...

To say more would give away the story. I want you to experience the pleasure of seeing it through, though. In part, I want you to see the distinctive printing of this book. The artwork is good, a cut above the usual, but an unusual half-tone process preserves more of the art's detail, and overprinting in silver creates a jewel-like luster. It's an outstanding effort, and I'm looking forward to the third installment in the series.

//wiredweird