MIRRORS OF ANGUISH by R.P. Kraul

Author's Creative Brand:
"Mirrors of Anguish"
Genre: Modern Classic Horror Noir
Length: 281 Pages
Immortal Ink Publishing 

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations:
1.  World's Immersion:
Readers are transported like Jill, the writer protagonist of "Mirrors of Anguish," as fish-out-of-water' into the secluded town of Belcorte, nestled away in the Southern Catskills or Poconos mountains of Pennsylvania. A deliberate isolation like this, ought to be indication enough, that Readers are in for an especially tasty, macabre-odd ride.

The Author further isolates world elements to completely surround Readers in his own conjured mood of a throw-back, old-school haunting:  the snaking Indianhead River, the mythic Townsend House, the 'relic' county precinct, a chrome greasy-spoon known as Lila's Diner, Mount Nessler with the Jarvings' looming Georgian-style estate, or up to bleak Chelsing Asylum.  Readers will wander, clamber, shiver and soak, within all sorts of creepy environments.

The main world of our involvement, is inside of Jill's mystery-drenched, Victorian mansion, once owned by her infamous grandfather. In fact, events as they are unveiled, become quick realization to Readers, that this stage is set at ground-zero of a legendary, most monstrous dismemberment imaginable, to any human spirit...

2. Character/Icons:
Jill: She is a writer, journalist by trade, producing pedestrian articles for The Rochester Times. Jill writes in a very personal moment, "We suffer tiny defeats in childhood, and these defeats leave irreplaceable vacancies in us." Her return to Belcorte opens a generational Pandora's Box of tragic secrets, repressed animosities, and unspeakable danger to her; but being adventurous, and obsessive, Jill abides by the nasty weather.

Arthur Townsend: Jill's grandfather, a college professor of anthropology, and reputed psychopathic murderer of student, Lydia Jarvings, both deceased over 20 years.  Despite Arthur's passing, a dead girl gets delivered to the precinct every few years, around Christmas time...as if Townsend had a maniacal partner in the area, a "Santa Ghoul." Arthur's work appears incomplete, even after death, visiting Jill in her dreams to offer a warning...the Monster of Belcorte is coming for her.

Jill's Dad:  He is the warm, seemingly simple father, with his many pedestrian brainstorms about Life...until his revelation to Jill on return to Belcorte. Despite sudden emotional conflict, he still has the heart to fix-up her world, renovating the ancient house around Jill, to clean-up what came before.

Reed Hobson: A long-standing but retired former chief of police with the precinct, whose own cop father had been nemesis to the psycho of Belcorte.  Reed, obsessed with the killings, took up the mantle and curse which went unresolved for some thirty years...bitter failure; inclusive, Hobson's inability to connect meaningfully with his fellow human beings. The worst regret on a mountain of regrets, being unable to save his own son, Micheal, from drowning to death at the Indianhead Reservoir.

Lydia Jarvings: Eddie's niece, Robert's girl, and the decapitated victim of Grandpa Townsend.

Nikolaus Jarvings: "Wealthiest, most influential man in Campton County." For some deep, dark reason, this ancient business man is inextricably connected to Jill and her tragic past in Belcorte. And not simply Nikolaus, as the tendrils to Jill, are rooted in several other sketchy members of the Jarvings family.

Eddie "The Mad" Jarvings: "Acting County Commissioner, only living descendant to Nikolaus." Scotch drinker, hard-boiled kingpin to the local law scene. Sketchy.

Quentin (a.k.a. "Looney Tunes," as Eddie would call him): Nikolaus' door-man/cook extraordinary with the disturbing face, baritone voice, and deadpan, pitch-odd humor.  If Jill is to engage the mysteries and relationship inherent in her connection to Nikolaus, she must go through this creeper, again and again.

Ben Callahan: Running the generational, family-owned, "Importers of Philadelphia," existing between a weedy parking lot and condemned apartment building. Jill has to contact Ben in Philly, if she wants to recover Nikolaus Jarvings' "trunk" that the silver keys she now possesses will open up...an artifact of dark family relevance, going back 23 years. She encounters more than simply a plot-device in this rough-and-tumble, former boxer, Lothario, also known as "Benedetto," who will come to call on Jill, as "Vicky-J."

Artemis Randle a.k.a. "The Indianhead Reservoir Killer" : "The goddamn kid from Michigan" and Reed's favorite suspect for the call-list of eleven murders.

Peggy: Reed's wife, she of the clouded-over eyes, ever since their son Micheal died.  Connections between Peggy and Reed have misfired ever since, without recovery. It doesn't help matters, that Peggy is acutely aware of Reed's on-the-side dalliance, working at the diner.

Suzette: Reed's girl-on-the-side, waitress serving up pleasantries masking an attitude, at Lila's Diner.

Jill's Mother: "Mother's world had been filled with psychopaths, crooks, kooks, drug-dealers, sluts, baby kidnappers, religious cults and people who endeavored to ruin life for everyone else."...who once gave Jill's stuffed rabbit away and broke her heart, the most innocent betrayal of many emotional infractions before passing away a mere month preceding the action of this story...mercifully.

Poe: Jill's cat, 'the cantankerous little grouch,' who, this blogger will wager, lovingly embodies a cat that the Author surely knows in real life.

3. Structural Appointments:

"Mirrors of Anguish" is built through three major parts.

Part One could be considered a laying down of the rules, the various tracks followed by the extensive cast of characters, and a thorough fleshing-out of the nature to the danger we are stepping inside. Mystery plays a deep role involving Readers, because puzzle pieces drop randomly, subtly, and sometimes, with the force of a hammer to the cranium.

Part Two rolls forward with an increasing action as all players on the field are moving into position for their own benefit of staying dominant, remaining hidden, or ending threat to their territories. The character of Jill becomes fully immersed and alive, in what becomes a whirlwind of lusty high-stakes, and increasingly disturbing truths.

Part Three escalates into an "end-game" on all levels.

4. "Visuality"/Sensory Appeal:
This is not a commonplace Horror, set in common surroundings, populated by ordinary characters. "Mirrors of Anguish" is a tripped-out, fever dream of sensation-tweaking descriptions.

"The cemetery, a stretch of protuberant humps, sprouted grave-stones as varied in shape as a child's toys. The greenish ball of sun, partitioned by skeletal trees, leered at her. Perched on branches, wrens and cardinals twitched their heads."

Readers will discover, that the Author seeks to tweak sensations on all levels of the sensory reading experience. In the world of "Mirrors of Anguish," Readers will not make it through a single scene without full engagement, being raked, tingled, sense of smell spiked, or sense of security getting disturbingly jostled.

"Shaped like a riveted diver's helmet, the furnace resembled a thing from hell's crematorium."

5. Thematic Mythic Appeal:
Jill is that writer character who gets to be surrounded by a larger-than-life horror-story, stretching back over a quarter century to misty childhood, yawning open like a beast's jaws, to "welcome her home." The corridors of this infamous, family Gothic, that Jill is at the center of, involves a menagerie of violent haunting, twisted or fractured psychosis, killing machines, supernatural reality, and obscene regimes of dark conspiracy. Author R.P. Kraul digs back into the gristle of history for ramifications to events underpinning this succession of Belcorte teen murders, which echoes the haunting screams of another historic hunt.

A closer consideration which Readers may wonder at, is the question of how obscene cruelty which occurs very early in a child's life, may actually splinter that young soul's psychology forever.  We have all read real-life horror stories of the vile acts real people have perpetrated upon the young. At the black heart of this black story, this question is explored:  Does monstrous abuse to a child, have the believable capacity of blossoming that innocence, into a far more monstrous, even powerful Evil?

6. Story-Flow:
"Mirrors of Anguish" covers much ground, between the various sets in Victorian Belcorte, urban Philadelphia, and also in transformed Space or Time of memory, depending on which character's mind the Reader is inhabiting.  There is a lot of environmental or atmospheric movement, much intellectual complexity, and colorfully provocative characters to keep Readers engaged in the dark unraveling.

What makes this book so enjoyably compelling, is that the story plays out like a crazy, relentless dream one gets lost in, inhabited by strange curiosities keeping the journey spiraling down that "rabbit hole."

7. Innovation/Genre Blend:
R.P. Kraul is deeply influenced by classicism in Horror, the elements that make this genre immortal, and has endeavored to bring that terrifying sensibility to Readers, but with fresh, clever differences.

Kraul has created a savvy modern NIGHTMARE, with dark and dreamily conveyed, Horror atmospherics, on the borderland of Noir pulp-fiction, all realms converging with the visual feel of a wicked graphic novel.  This book ought to be converted to a graphic novel, all the better to bubble up as a fantastic, edgy movie.

Although I don't include Paranormal Romance in Kraul's genre description, there is a definite lacing of that sensibility here.  There is the spicy-yet-touching relationship between Jill and Ben, her rough and tumble boxer from Philly.

8. Author's Voice/Language:
R.P. Kraul loves language and the rolling of its arrangements into unexpected formations. Unlike many modern Horror-writers with pedestrian descriptions that just cover the beats, Kraul never allows a single observation to go, without a back-spin or hook-shot of color. For example, R.P. enjoys adding personification to inanimate objects, inflicting a mood upon their existence. The very telling of this tale oscillates between the stylistic tones of the Horror prism, with the tough feel of a Noir sensibility.

When I am reading Kraul's voice, through the P.O.V of Jill, I feel placed inside a girl's perspective, comfortable in my post-college sweatshirt, feeling something like Clair from "Six Feet Under."  And then Kraul pulls a neat trick, and places me inside the coarse, sexed-up, hyper-masculine viewpoint of Ben. In fact, R.P. shape-shifts believably behind the personality perspectives of all his characters in "Mirrors of Anguish," nimbly playing the Readers behind multiple players' eyes, until getting to this world's more disturbing psychologies...and we even get to go "inside there," too!

9. The After Resonance:
This book took me back to that little person I was, who stayed up ultra-late on Hallowe'en, after the parents went to bed, to watch those monster movies I was warned not to watch.  And I watched them! This book reminded me of that old Warren Publishing collection of "Creepy," "Eerie," and "Fangoria," magazines that I collected as a boy, to populate my mental garden with friends of the scary imagination.  R.P. Kraul takes his twisted vision to a place, beyond the quaint Technicolor escapism of childhood Hammer Horror movies...to a designation, burrowing somewhere deeper into the primitive imaginations of reading minds...as a haunting meant to linger.

"Like a mirror seeing ecstasy, but reflecting anguish." This quote is an apt understanding for Readers to appreciate what has been created in "Mirrors of Anguish (The Belcorte Murders)."  A best artistic reason as to why the genre of Modern Classic Horror matters, in reflecting this collective need for exploring our terrors...if rendered, as R.P. Kraul writes it, (not for faint-of-heart) in the language of Horror's Reverence.

To discover R.P. Kraul's "MIRRORS OF ANGUISH" with Immortal Ink Publishing, further:
http://www.amazon.com/Mirrors-Anguish-Belcorte-Murders-ebook/dp/B008VF4ZE8