Customer Reviews

Mr. Hands

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Braunbeck is a master of the evocative dark fantasy novel. Few authors are as capable of generating as much emotion as he is in a genre that is too often frowned upon for over-the-top gore or simplistic storylines. Braunbeck is willing to take his themes to the max, with no simple solutions or easy answers.

In MR. HANDS we are introduced to a young man with psychic abilities who can use his supernatural skills to seek out pain and evil and destroy it. However, those in the greatest pain are children without hope and destined to awful ends, and in providing mercy killings, the young man is dubbed a serial killer. After many years of following his calling, and gathering the ghosts of these children inside himself, his power has grown much stronger. Eventually this mystical power comes in contact with a mother whose missing daughter is feared the victim of a sexual predator. Her rage and pain are able to call upon this energy and give it the face and body of a small wooden doll. It's also given a name. MR. HANDS.

Now MR. HANDS is on a mission of vengeance and offers absolutely no mercy to those he is set in motion against. Not even when a mistake is made and an innocent might have to suffer.

Braunbeck makes us feel all the driving forces of his characters. The confusion, fear, anger, misunderstandings, and unresolved hurts. His characters are fully human, with all the frailties and faults the rest of us have. His wonderfully imaginative story is gripping, horrifying, and provocative, with enough blood to satisfy the gorehounds but also strengthened by a superior writing style. The fantastical elements in the novel all serve the purpose of underscoring the conflicted nature of the human condition. Serious and thoughtful, this is horror at its best.

I came across this book browsing the local Borders and purchased it expecting an entertaining little book. All I can say it that I got that and more. As an avid reader it takes a lot to keep me awake and reading, but I started this book on Thursday afternoon and finished at 4:00 am Friday morning. I literally could not put it down expect the few times I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. Yes, this is a horror story but it is so much more. The pain and suffering of the children and "Mr. Hands" came across loud and clear. This is a novel of love, redemption and the humanity in us all. A highly entertaining read that I have all ready lent out and recommended to several people.

The unique beauty of this tale has to share the spotlight with the rich emotions the author stirred in, to make it as believable as possible. While reading this I often wondered how personal any of this could have been for him and for the sake of anyone's sanity I hope they never get to experience these events in person.

Mr. Hands starts off as three separate events that come together to form a tight and haunting ending. It all begins with a little boy who was born not out of an act of love but by what his father called - a mistake. He was loved by his weak mother and he was abused by the father, harvesting special powers that helped him seek out children who suffered the same way he did. His mental scars never let him grow pas his eleventh year while his body grew into that of a man, a man on a mission to end child abuse and to inflict punishment, not revenge on the parents who did it to them. Ronnie, for that was his name, ran into Lucy Thompson, another main character, when he was a few years old and left her with what he thought of as a gift. In reality his actions started a chain of events that would some day conclude in cataclysmic proportions in the small, sleepy town of Cedar Hill. Much happens in between, mostly bad things that are best not spoiled to the reader. Years later they meet again but under much darker circumstances, where a creature of death and blind justice is born, making monsters out of those who wants to do good by helping to kill others. This was part horror and part supernatural with a dose of gray morality threw into the mix.

The book is a very fast read and the author does a great job of describing everything in an immaculate detail. After reading it I am still haunted by the pain and suffering the kids endured, especially since that kind of abuse happens in real life, and the ice pick feeling of sheer fear in throats of their parents, those who genuinely loved and missed them was more than real. The element of cruel punishment inflicted on the guilty was satisfying but it came with a hefty price tag to those who administered it.

- Kasia S.

Mr. Hands may be the finest work of Gary A. Braunbeck's career, and quite possibly, the best thing he'll ever write. I was absolutely spellbound by the story, characters, and rich mythology he created. I can't recall a horror novel that had me as emotional as this (right up there with Jack Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR - both involve the endangerment of children and their helplessness).

Besides a few typos (shame, shame, Leisure Books!), I found every chapter, every paragraph, and every sentence infused with such passion, it was hard for me to get the lump out of my throat. As a parent of two young children, this was a difficult book to read, but the message of hope and helping others in need made it easier to get through. I can't recommend this book enough. So far, this is my favorite book of 2007, in horror, or any other genre. Mr. Braunbeck, I feel priviledged to have read such a wonderful and powerful book. Thank you.

There are others here who have written reviews with details, so there's no reason for me to go over them again. I will say this was a rough read, hard stuff, emotionally stretched taut, and completely honest to those emotions. From what I have read by Braunbeck, this is a specialty of his. Sure, it's horror, but it's horror that connects, reaches in and squeezes the heart and soul; it's not by the numbers slash and slaughter, blah blah, who gives a flying squirrel stuff, no. This stuff CONNECTS. It's not just the horror elements that appeal. The best section in the book is Part Two, chapter one. In the grief support group. Lucy Thompson's reaction to the rhetoric. Everything here is perfect, the spiel, the reaction, everything. This is writing, my friends. Braunbeck is a master of this kind of thing, where the average person can relate and think, "Yeah, that IS right!" Pick up this book, pick up the *amazing* Prodigal Blues, pick up Destinations Unknown, all brilliant!

JCS

Never liked Gary Braunbeck's earlier endeavers. But this one Oh,baby, this one...its like the movied Pumpkinhead right? But with a completley unique twist all its own...its like a tall glass of Rasberry Ice Crystal Lite and youre like "well, thats not too original." But, ho-ho, try putting in some Chambord in that baby. Thats what this is like.
Ronnie is special. He's got the mind of an 11 year-old but he is special. By touching anyone he can seee their hurt and pain and he can end it. Well, by killing them. He absorbs their souls and they are at peace.
Now theres Lucy. Doing well for herself but has to come back to her one-horse hometown because dear old dad has been laid off. Yadda-yadda-yadda, she gets pregnant,runs into Ronnie, loses the baby.Ronnie and Lucy have a destiny.Although, Lucy doesnt recognize Ronnie in his later years, he is proudly obedient to serve her in her unbridled rage when her next baby is kidnapped and killed. Oh yeah , she goes off the deep end ,folks.
I really dont want to give anything away. Oh,yeah, its kind of like the old Grindhouse pictures because its actually a story being told by another story. Very well done, I might add. I think Joe Lansdale is the only other author Ive read to do this( The Drive-IN).
So rejoice in this reading horror fans! The gore factor is pretty high,too.

this was my first Braunbeck novel and I must say that this is story telling at its best! both thought provoking and at times philosophical, MR. HANDS trancendes average horror fiction and takes to literary genious! genuinely disturbing, moody and with more than enough twist and turns, I highly recomend this novel to all horror fans.

I've been signed up for the Leisure books horror club for a couple years now. Every once in a while I will pick up one of the books that has stacked up over the past few months and give it a read. Most of the novels are fairly well-written and decent enough for passing the time. Mr. Hands was the first novel I've read by Gary Braunbeck and all I can say is wow! I picked up the book, noticed the cover, and expected a book about some gruesome voodoo doll killer. This has some of those elements, but is so much more. Braunbeck does an amazing job of weaving together multiple storylines, making you care about flawed and human characters, and creatively shifting time to keep the writing unique and keep the reader guessing. I guess you could say that Braunbeck is a master of both chronos and kairos! I look forward to discovering some of his other fiction. For those of you looking for a gripping story, you've found it. Highly recommended.

Gary Braunbeck was recommended to me by one of my hyper-literate book nerd friends; she's my friend with the uncanny ability to read eight books a week and know exactly what I will like, and what I should like. Braunbeck fit into both categories (a rarity). As always, I was hesitant to accept the recommendation and repentant once I had.

Mr. Hands is one of the best books I've read in a long time. I'm not usually a horror guy, but Mr. Hands is horror in the same way that Moby Dick is a fishing story, and if you think that's hyperbole, then you are history's greatest monster!

Ahem.

Anyway, this book had real emotional substance. Having certain prejudices about the horror genre, I might say that this book sucker punched me with substance. I suppose you could call this a monster story, but the monsters that affected me the most in the book... well, you wouldn't look twice at them if you saw them in the street. The world of Mr. Hands feels very real and very grounded, but in a way that makes me feel a little disturbed about what is "real" about the human experience.

Ok. I want to say more, but I would be doing the book a disservice. Just read it. You won't regret it. Plus, all the praise I have for Mr. Hands can be equally applied to the novella that is also included.

Gary A. Braunbeck, Mr. Hands (Leisure, 2007)

Understand, first, that the horror of Gary Braunbeck is not the horror of the splatterpunks, or of Stephen King, or of Clive Barker, or of Dean Koontz. If I had to compare Braunbeck's writing to anyone's, it would be that of Charles L. Grant, except that Braunbeck's writing is far more immediate than Grant's ever was. Things may jump out of the dark at you in a Braunbeck story, but any disembowelling is probably going to happen offstage. The horror, also, comes less from the monster involved than it does from the characters; hell, as Jean-Paul Sartre so memorably remarked, really is other people, and Gary Braunbeck gets that. I'm not sure why it took me over twenty years after I first heard Braunbeck's name to finally get round to reading one of his books. It will certainly not take me another twenty years to get to the second.

Two stories here. The title piece is the longer of them, about a serial killer who acts out of the goodness of his heart. I know, I know, you've heard that before, but our Ronnie is kind of touched in the head, as well as supernaturally gifted; when he looks into someone's face, he can see all the pain they suffer. Thus, what he sees himself as doing is freeing these kids from bondage, right? But because he's touched in the head, sometimes he mixes things up. All well and good, and the serial killer is finally wounded in turn, and then goes off to die... until being resurrected in the form of Mr. Hands, a scary doll who is one of the beloved playthings of a child gone missing, and whose mother is consumed with a desire for revenge. Once the power of Mr. Hands is unleashed, though, sometimes he mixes things up... Second story, "The Mudman", will probably remind you a decent amount of King's "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band", though with added mudman goodness.

Braunbeck is a solid writer. In less skilled hands, "Mr. Hands" could have come off as a Lifetime Original Movie script with an added supernatural element. (For that matter, "The Mudman", which takes place in a church shelter, isn't that far off the path, either.) But Braunbeck resists the temptations for easy answers and soundbite-style lines. Maybe if Japan had a Lifetime Movie Network, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa directed movies for it, something like "Mr. Hands" may have popped up at some point. In any case, as long as you don't go into this expecting the ultra-fast-paced gore novels that have become more popular of late, it's a good'un indeed. ****