This can be filed in the I-read-it-so-you-don't-have-to file. And I can't even try to sell it to make up for the lost hours of my life.
A common criticism I hear leveled at Stephen King is that his books are bloated. Anyone that thinks King's background details on characters, and attempts to characterise his casts are bloat needs to read this to see what bloat looks like.
Basic story - through various contrivances an ancient Peruvian Snake-demon possesses a colt .357 pistol. Anyone who owns the gun is haunted by the demon and turns into a serial killer.
There is a possible good novel to be made out of that idea. But this isn't it. A story as ridiculous as this should be a 200 page maximum pot boiler, fast paced and revelling in its inherent silliness. Instead this is 397 pages and takes itself completely seriously.
The pacing in this book is so far out of whack. We're almost 70 pages in before we meet any recurring characters. At one point when Emily,our brave heroine, has had her first bust up with her husband after he has taken possession of the gun, we get a TEN PAGE flashback telling about how they met at high school, he went to Vietnam, came back and became a drunk but quit the drink when she threatened to leave. All the information in the flashback had been provided earlier in the book. All this did was slow the action down.
The mysterious priest - who wears blue jeans so he must be a cool dude priest - is mentioned in passing somewhere around page 150, appears for a page in person about 50 pages later, and doesn't come back into the narrative until about page 320. Considering that he's the only one who can fight the demon, maybe he should have been a character for more of the story? And even with him we get a five page flashback to fill in his past.
There are massive gaps in contiuity in this book. When first told of Sam's alcoholic past we're told he wasn't a nasty or violent drunk so Emily was lucky in that respect. When he starts drinking again under the influence of the gun, we're told he was a belligerent and angry drunk.
The author has no real imagination for names. Sam's surname is Walters and his cop partner is called... Walter.
The behaviour of the characters under the influence of the gun isn't even unique amongst the characters in the book. At one point Sam is called to stop a wife-beater (who has a full one page monologue while beating his wife as the two cops stand and watch) who behaves exactly as the possessed characters do, breaking down into tears after his violence and apparently unable to remember what he did, despite the gun never having been in his possession. Perhaps if more of the town had been featured like this, some case could have been made for the pervasive influence of the evil of the demon possessing the gun, but nothing of the sort.
The aforementioned Walter, after killing his bedridden mother, literally just sells the murder weapon to Sam and leaves town, never to be mentioned again in the story except for the one brief mention when his mother's body is discovered nearly 200 pages and a month in book time later. Considering that the carriers of the gun need to own it and get insanely jealous if anyone else touches it, the selling of the gun makes no sense whatsoever.
He's not the only character to simply vanish from the narrative. The first murder we have in the 80's section of the book involves best friend cops Roger and Tom. Roger is a womanising alcoholic wife beater even without the assistance of the gun, but nevertheless the gun is in his possession. His wife Sandy has started an affair with Tom and asked for a divorce. Tom is also married and has told his wife. This chapter is nearly 40 pages of the various relationships, Roger with his wife Sandy, Sandy's version of events, Tom with his own wife and Tom and Sandy together, culminating in the murder. Roger calls Tom over to the house for a chat, and promptly kills Tom and then is hanged by the demon in his prison cell. Note I don't give Tom's wife's name. That's because she is never mentioned again even in passing after this chapter.
The prose is repetive beyond belief. For example, when Sam ends up in hospital, we hear nearly twenty times in three pages how well liked he is by the hospital staff and that Emily doesn't think they'll believe her story about an evil gun. We're given the same information time and time again, as if the author thinks we'll forget what the characters said to each other ten pages ago.
There are no normal characters in the book. There are no normal relationships. Either it's the perfect family and everyone deeply in love and happy (despite past indiscretions and problems) or alcoholic wifebeaters. I get that the writer has done this for contrast when a charcter turns, but truer relationships work much better in fiction. Life exists in shades of gray, this book veers from the purest white to the darkest blacks with nothing in between.
If you really want to buy a copy of this book, it is still available - although the title now appears to be Blood Forged. I don't think the added D will help the overall quality of the book.
I don't think I will be reading more by this particular writer.
A generous 3/10 for a potentially nice idea.
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