A Sizzling Tour de Force:
Fire & Flesh by Evan Kingsbury
Spontaneous human combustion is one of those
topics that horror fans are genuinely intrigued by; dictionary
entries don't satisfy us any more than, say, episodes that
treat the subject on a program like Unsolved Mysteries. Its
allure runs deeper than that for those of us whose
imaginations are -pardon the pun-sparked by the bizarre, the
unusual, and the anomalous.
Evan Kingsbury not only delves into the subject
in Fire and Flesh
, he handles it
and his gruesome, fascinating tale brilliantly.
The novel opens in Calcutta--a hive of sights, sounds and
intrigue. Kingsbury has the skill in this and all his settings
to create a visual montage that reads like the equivalent of
the most interesting slide show you've ever witnessed….a
travelogue that makes you realize-even if you never visited
this place before-you are dying to go there. This ability
holds true of all the odd terrain-both physical and
mental-that he describes. This seminal scene grounds the rest
of the book and he has that all-too-rare knack of being able
to make his information and settings as vivid and interesting
as his characters-in fact, these "outside" motifs function as
"character" in Fire and Flesh.
Kingsbury (a.k.a Robert W. Walker, the best selling novelist
of the Instinctseries) weaves
in a mythos about the ancient power of the Kundalini serpent
and its ability to possess and consume humans-and he does it
so that it flows seamlessly into the book and the reader never
feels as if he's being fed information. The plot and pacing
never sag.
From present-day Calcutta, the story moves to Miami, Florida
where a record-breaking heat wave is searing the city and
where most of the action takes place. His main characters,
detective Eric Brannon and assistant medical Examiner,
Angelica Hunter, are quickly drawn into the fray.. Kingsbury
provides plenty of detail and graphics to describe what is
happening to some of Miami's residents who are
synchronistically spontaneously combusting:
Much of this well-researched book devolves on
dualism, on opposites pitted against each other. It delves
into evil and the various forms that plague us as humans and
treats subjects as varied as the Kundalini myth and
anti-matter machines.
Kingsbury, adept as a snake-charmer and the Kundalini serpents he writes about, creates a tale that is both highly readable and wonderfully metaphoric. Horror fans will not be disappointed at his leap into the world of the supernatural and the bizarre.
Visit the official Robert W. Walker Website:
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