Review: Compelling horror
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 19, 2014
The start of this story sees the state of Arkansas execute serial killer Dane Peters, nicknamed the Rest Stop Dentist for the brutal way he loved to remove his victim’s teeth and leave a trail of them leading to the body.The story is told in first person through the eyes of Dane’s Mother, Ella and this is an extremely compelling tale, partly of abuse, the horrific repercussions and how easy it is to look the other way.Edward Lorn again uses multiple time lines to tell a horror story that effectively forces you to look where the blame lies for what could be the blueprint to the production of a serial killer, not to say everyone who suffers abuse of this kind is likely to turn out that way but it looks intricately at the role of both parents.In the present timeline Ella starts to see the ghost of her dead son, the horror side of the story is the powers that Dane possesses, he’s able to manifest as an entity capable of killing, just as he did when he was alive and take control of people. With a reporter in tow, Ella is forced on a road trip, leaving a trail of death behind her to visit Dane’s lover, someone she wasn’t even aware of but at what cost and for what reason.In alternate chapters we then go back in time to see how Ella and Dane’s Father Phil meet, the joyous birth of Dane and the continual abuse as he grows up to become a monster. Phil was a firm believer in tough love, he strived to ensure his son didn’t grow up to be a ‘pussy’ and equally at fault his Mother Ella, who turned the other cheek, forever hoping that Phil would see the error of his ways and magically revert back to the man she had fallen in love with.She never lifted a hand to stop the violence and the image of the young boy asking his Mother…..“Will the tooth fairy come even though it didn’t fall out on its own, Momma? Will the Tooth fairy be mad ‘cause Daddy knocked it out”.…. is certainly one tinged with sadness. Along with Dane finally snapping as a young man and throwing his Father through a window, just deserts, not half.Ella is not a likeable character, she always seems on the brink of fully understanding what her lack of action did to her son but never does it fully sink in, retribution is extremely satisfying though.Life after Dane is the darkest of Ed’s stories so far, the ones I’ve read anyway, there’s not much of the humour usually present in his work baring a couple of sentences but this is a hard hitting story that certainly gives food for thought. A chillingly unpredictable story that I never even came close to guessing an ending that was very well thought out, a complete surprise and my applause once again.I’ll finish on a cringe worthy quote ‘She smiled, all big and bold, with teeth the shade of infected urine’, hopefully not one of her most redeeming qualities then.