From Publishers Weekly
Although billed as horror/science fiction, poet Cadnum's (Foreign Springs) first novel is neither, nor is it effective psychodrama. Programmed to expect that something unreal and horrible will happen, the reader never feels the frisson of fear essential to the genre. Part of a prominent San Francisco family "that has always craved secrecy," Mary Lewis sends her nephew, Paul Wright, to check on her neurotic son, Len, who has hidden himself away in a remote cabin in the wilderness. Having found pictures Len has taken inside his grandfather's crypt, and aware of secrets in her own past, Mary thinks that Len is trying to turn himself into her dead father. Floods and fire come into the narrative, but despite these natural disasters and many of the conventional accoutrements of horror, Cadnum fails to imbue his story with genuine suspense. The writing is deliberately oblique, the characters are flat and their dialogue virtually interchangeable. And the plot device of a spectral voice has been seriously overdone.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Poet Cadnum ( Invisible Mirror ) tries his hand at prose in this first novel of macabre suspense set in Northern California. San Francisco restaurant critic Paul Wright and his girlfriend travel to wine country to check on Paul's eerie cousin Len. Len lives in a remote cabin and likes to spend his time staking out cemeteries armed with a camera. When our heroes arrive at Len's vacant cabin and find his private stash of gruesome graveyard photos, they realize the depth of his obsession and the possible danger to themselves. Despite sound plot mechanics, Cadnum's characters prove as realistic as cardboard cutouts and fail to evoke much empathy. Still, this first effort shows promise of better things to come. For larger fiction collections.
- Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Mark Annichiarico, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
