Review: Terrifying beauty--with William Friedkin's blessings
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 9, 2014
The director of The Exorcist and Cruising would heartily approve of D J Bennett's relentless pacing and unflinching commitment to showing, in horrifying detail, one boy's forced descent into heroin addiction and gay prostitution. The suspense is finely orchestrated on several fronts: our empathy for this likable boy...our growing realization that this author will go the distance in showing still worse degradation...and the artfully shown race to find him--while there's still something worth saving. Make no mistake, it's a grim read. But there's more compassion here than you'll find in all of Friedkin. While surgically dissecting the progression of his addiction, Bennett is careful to add rays of hope: a rebellious streak...shrewd attempts to escape his captors and his sickness. He falls hard, and then harder,and then harder still. But he never once falls from our hearts. The book has first-class villains and a fine setup at the end for the two sequels that followed. Highly recommended.