Page-Turning Political Horror
There's a lot of horror that's infused with the supernatural. @richq11 's The Night Gods is not one of them. Aimed at folks who are a wee bit tired of the standard devil-worship props, he's created a page-turning realistic supernatural horror. The only appearance of the supernatural is during the last chapter of the book. Nevertheless, there's horror aplenty.
The Night Gods of the title are a group of shadowy, malevolent beings that profit from human pain, misery, loss and death. Being shadowy, they usually keep to themselves. Instead of religious ritual, the human servants of the Night Gods take actions that bring pain and loss to most ordinary folks.
The book has two parts. Part I, much shorter than Part II, is the first-person tale of a young man who becomes seduced by the Night Gods and becomes a serial killer. There's a tension between his conscience, which is aware of what he's doing, and his grisly actions. Adding to the tension is the fact that the only man he trusts is a cop. He deliberately ends his chilling career by attempting a murder right in front of two other policemen, thus assuring he'll get caught.
The much longer second part reads a lot like a so-called political thriller. The main character of the first part, who we find out is named Eddie Phillips, plays pivotal roles in the second.
But he's not the main character. The main character is the villain, Senator-turned-President Alan Denning, who's no only evil but also sociopathic. His sociopathy (you'll have to read the book to find out the horrific specifics) is quite grisly: it goes over and above the usual murder.
Starting off as an obscure Senator, he wins the favor of The Council: an organization of rich elites who consciously serve the Night Gods. Headed up by Victor Lockhart, a rich industrialist born into the role, these people rule through pulling the strings of politicians. As explained in the book, the Night Gods do have power in the world: anyone of talent who serves them gets the odds in life tilted in their favor. Thusly, The Council both rules behind the scenes and effects misery pleasing to the Night Gods. Later in the book we learn that there's a factional split in The Council that's pivotal to the plot.
Instead of a single hero, there's a team of heroes. Once of them is Lena Cedeno, the Executive Assistant to Senator Ashby. The Senator, another hero, is Denning's opponent for the Presidency. Bret Shoemaker, an award-visiting investigative journalist, is another. His old friend "Dick," a retired covert operative, is yet another. Dick brings along Jim and Ann Dawson, as well as Ann's son David. Dick's skill in hacking, assisted by David, helps even the odds for the heroes as they try to take down Denning.
One interesting plot twist comes from Denning's sociopathy. Not above murders and politically profiting from them, Denning also proves to have horrid tastes that alienate even The Council. His Council-appointed handler, a black-ops master named Przybysz, is so repulsed by Denning's private activities that he switches sides and joins the heroes. Demming's campaign manager, Sean Welbourne, also goes cold.
The climax of the book revolves around a wag-the-dog scenario: a Hail-Mary pass for Denning as he scrambles to prevent the record of his evil catching up with him. Since I don't want to give away the ending, I'll just say that it's not Disneyish.
@richq11 first caught my eye here in 2016 because he wrote a fast-paced detective story. This same talent shows in this book. It's a page-turner, not unlike a so-called political thriller. He delivers on the horror part, which is grisly. The team of heroes versus the individual villain illustrates his theory that good people are other-directed and bad people are inner-directed (selfish.) One of the treats of the book is the plot revealing that evil bursts out of its own posh cage, to the point where some of the Night-Gods worshipers have to act to restrain their own allies and even some of their fellows.
I recommend you buy this book. If you can stand the grisly parts, you'll read a page-turning and memorable horror. One without the usual menageries of ghoulies and monsters. :)