Apostle Rising by Richard Godwin is the story of evil at its most fundamental level--that of mankind.
Someone is getting away with murder and it is Detective Chief Inspector Frank Castle’s job to bring the killer to justice. Collect the evidence, follow the clues, snap the cuffs on, and home in time for dinner with the family, right? Oh so wrong. This killer wasn’t playing by TV crime show rules. He wrote his own, and being held accountable for his depravity was not among them. The best laid plans often fail to come to fruition, and this monster crept away into the night. Left in his wake, however, was more than dead bodies. The victim left alive was Frank Castle. He lost his family, his sense of order, the respect of many and the illusion of sanity. Life went on, as did his obsession.
Years later, the nightmare begins again, and the victims are not the only ones being crucified. Frank Castle’s anger and fear are brought to the surface as death once again stalks the streets. Is it the same killer who eluded him years before, come back to satiate desires to torture and murder, as well as to push Frank over that last hurdle into insanity once and for all? Is it all part of his diabolical scenario to force Frank to watch helplessly as his new partner, DI Jackie Stone, falls headlong into the same dark well of despair as the killer nourishes the seeds of the obsession she shares with Frank?
This is not the story of caped crusaders. No laser eyes or spider-like reflexes or instincts present. Frank and Jackie are the human kind of crime fighter. The kind with hopes and needs and flaws just like the rest of us. What sets them apart is their dedication to protect the innocent from the demons that at times walk freely among us who are always thirsting for one more soul. Is this new killer a specter from the past, or is it a deranged copycat paying homage to his psychopathic hero?
Join Frank Castle and Jackie Stone as they try to unravel layer after layer of confusion and chaos in their search for the truth and try to stop a madman’s deadly rampage. And in the end? We can only pray they are the ones left standing.
Sounds good!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Paul. Richard's work is always impressive anyway, but this novel? I just wanted to share just how much I enjoyed this from the first word to the last.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the mood for a good crime novel, I will look it up on Amazon.
ReplyDeleteHi Beach, Apostle Rising is unlike anything I've read. It's cream-of-the-crop noir!
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with you Joyce. I've read procedurals and horror mixes before but, in Apostle, the terror is more on the cops than the victims. At least for the butchered corpses it's over. Agonizing true, but finite. With Castle and Stone I had the feeling for most of the book that they were to be the last victims -- and perhaps they wound up that way after all.
ReplyDeleteAJ, you said it perfectly. Castle and Stone were the last victims, those that survived. But at what cost? Broken marriages, drinking, being very willing to cross the fine line that is the law... This killer does not just 'take' lives--he also destroys them. I thought this was a brilliant psychological study of what happens when dedicated cops spend their lives surrounded by evil. Some of it is bound to find its way in.
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