Coldwater

November 27, 2017
Parker follows his well-received debut, Purgatory Road, with an overwrought suspense novel. Michael Sullivan, a recently released convict, was heading home to Coldwater, a remote town in an unnamed state, when he ran into a group of vengeful men who buried him alive in a forest. Michael manages to dig himself out of the ground, but more ordeals lie ahead, as the people of Coldwater have always hated him for murdering his younger brother as a child years earlier. Even his sister makes a special trip back to Coldwater to kill him. Scraps of Michael’s memories alternate with fitful glimpses into the minds of his hunters, each of whom embodies a different facet of mob violence. Amid all the philosophizing about guilt and innocence, rage and regret, crime and punishment, Parker clumsily injects a supernatural complication: demonic possession. Lurid images and often muddled prose (“he carried an absorbed twin in his cells which whispered despair”) make Michael’s sad story a bathetic, not tragic, comment on the inevitable wages of sin.

Starred review from February 1, 2018

The darkness that emanates from Michael leaches into everything around him, destroying all that he touches. Spending most of his juvenile life in prison for killing his younger brother, Michael is moved to solitary confinement when mysterious and gruesome deaths begin occurring around him. Released as an adult, Michael returns to his hometown of Coldwater, where he finds a group of vigilantes waiting for him. A chance meeting with a stranger as he escapes the mob offers him an opportunity at redemption he is unable to accept until he is forced to make an unavoidable choice. Parker's sophomore effort (after Purgatory Road) is a powerful and disturbing retelling of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. Fast-paced prose evokes strong emotion that is intensified by the brevity of the chapters. The gritty plot can be a bit much for sensitive readers, but the story is ultimately compelling. VERDICT Fans of Stephen King and Dean Koontz will enjoy this twisted tale of the destructive and sinister power of evil. [See Q&A with Parker on p. 81.--Ed.]

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