Real people doing really horrible things
If you quote Philip Dick in a lead-in to a story about cutting people up you have my attention and several dollars from my bank account. The liter of Coke can stay on the shelf. Admiral Nelson and I will be just fine on our own with this collection of short stories.
With these kind of stories about psychotics usually comes a hyper voice in the prose that comes across equally as maniacal as the characters. But Jeremiah Cress takes a different approach to his style. I think perhaps there are two varieties of horror writer, and Cress’s writing style has the distinct DNA of one of them. That is that Cress him self studied criminal psychology, and thus has a dispassionate, windowpane, style to his writing, whereas the other kind of horror writer purges his mind from an emotional wellspring. Cress is more the cop, where other horror writers are more the criminal. Not that the narrative is boring, far from it. The style is engaging, clear and straightforward.
The stories are originally crafted on the subjects of real life criminal horror, real people doing real and horrible things. The book is well work its asking price, and is not just another piece of dollar fodder. Though his first novel, I think Cress will be around for many more turns.
Jeremiah Cress’s Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/booksbyjeremiah
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