John Andrews is the editor of a small New England newspaper, The Salem News. A one time heavy hitting news anchor with ABC news, he'd stepped down four years ago in order to spend more time with his wife Julie and daughter Sara. But things changed when his wife died in a tragic car accident, leaving him an empty-nester, reliant on the bottle to numb his pain. Now, as he's trying to pick up the shards of his life four years later, he begins to see the ghost of an ancestor that passed dozen of decades ago. Being a direct descendant of both the accusers and victims of the Salem witch trials isn't news to him, but the spirit of Rebecca Nurse, tried and hung as a convicted witch, will reveal to him things about his family he'd never even thought of in his wildest nightmares. As it turns out, Andrews family has fallen prey to tragedy after tragedy. With the help of Rebecca nurse and his assistant editor Amy, John will begin to question if his family's tragic past was just a statistical anomaly, or if something as nefarious as an centuries old Satanic cult is as the heart of it.
This book caught me completely unawares. I'd downloaded it some time ago and finally picked it at random to read out of over 400 books on my little kindle machine. It sucked me in from the get go.
Anything dealing with the Salem Witch trials, one of the darker periods of US history, tends to fascinate me. With VI, you not only get a direct descendent of both the Putnams and the Nurses dealing with family secrets, but a man with a haunted past dealing with a haunted PRESENT and Satanic cults! Now, how cool is that?
It wouldn't be cool if it wasn't well written with good characters, but Heath and Thompson have those both covered. John Andrews is the right mix of broken, tough, smart, and flawed. He's mourning his wife but he's not constantly lamenting and crying. He's a good reporter but he's not always the smartest man in the room--he knows his limitations. He keeps his pain bottled up inside but he's not constantly angry and he doesn't take out his pain on others. These characteristics make him interesting to read. In fact, all of the characters are interesting to read, from the major players to the minor players. Amy is smart, beautiful and a hard worker, but she's not the 'you'll love me and hate me for not loving you back because you know you don't have a chance' type. John's friends are colorful as well and strike the right balance of sarcasm and general affection for their friend and vice versa. As far as the antagonistic forces, they also have their own motivations and, as more is revealed about them, some aren't exactly as black and white as you'd may think at first.
The writing is very good. Other than a few passages (which I won't mention because that would mean putting in a spoiler and I don't do spoilers!) which seemed to drag on a bit, the book moves fast and smoothly. The story ebs and flows nicely, going from action, to reaction, with no hiccups. The horror sequences as well as the action sequences are well done, and even the talking head moments are moved along nicely with dialogue that's genuine, consistent, and flows as well as the narrative. Some of my favorite parts of the novel were when John is trading insults and insights with several of his friends. Plenty of one liners fly in those conversations with some zingers that are genuinely laugh out loud funny which brings a nice element of comic relief.
For the most part, the story is plotted pretty tightly. There were one or two things that I had to think twice about but they're few and far between. The authors really use the history of the Salem Witch Trials to good effect here. It's not just a back drop, but it's a living, breathing part of the story and what's more, when the history is detailed in the book, it doesn't come off as a lesson. A lot of times it's revealed in the poppy dialogue between well written characters.
With good characters, a nice spin on a dark part of history, ghosts, gore, action, Satanic cults, zippy dialogue, a couple twists here and there, and quicksilver narrative, this is really a nice blend of genres that fans of thrillers and mysteries in particular should give a read. Really REALLY fun page turner. 4.5 stars (but I gave it a five up on the good ole 'hose do you rate this item' cause that's how I roll)
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