BOOK REVIEW | RECALL: THE ELI CARVER SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS | ALAN BAXTER

BOOK REVIEW | RECALL: THE ELI CARVER SUPERNATURAL THRILLERS | ALAN BAXTER

BOOK DESCRIPTION

WELCOME TO THE COMPLETE ELI CARVER SUPERNATURAL THRILLER SERIES FROM ALAN BAXTER, THE AWARD-WINNING MASTER OF HORROR AND DARK FANTASY

Following a psychotic break, Eli Carver finds himself on the run, in the company of a terrified woman he doesn’t know. As layers of ugly truth are peeled back and dark secrets revealed, the duo find themselves in a struggle for survival as they unravel a mystery that pits them against the most dangerous forces in their lives.

The battle leads Eli into the company of a mysterious woman, hiding her own dangerous past, and an ongoing war between rival crime syndicates. With the ghosts of his past continuing to torment him, Eli takes the darkest of turns down a perilous path into a world of ancient religions and deadly occult rituals.

Eli and his ghosts must battle powerful adversaries as violence and dark magic coalesce with lethal consequences.

Includes all three books of the Eli Carver Supernatural Thriller Series in one omnibus edition.

REVIEW

Recall: The Eli Carver Supernatural Thrillers collects three novellas in one easy to read omnibus edition.

The book collects Manifest Recall, Recall Night & Ghost Recall.

Eli Carver is a bad man! A very bad man! After the death of his parents as a young  child he finds himself veering towards organised crime. Here he finds a home. Here he finds family. He finds belonging. 

Whilst working for Vernon, he is called upon to do some pretty questionable stuff. Eli is violent and willing to do almost anything to keep his position.

When we first meet Eli, in the first Novella Manifest Recall, he finds himself in a car with a barely dressed young woman. He can’t remember who she is or how he got there,  but as the story moves on we discover why and how he is in this predicament. We also find out that he can see ghosts. 

In the second book, Manifest Recall, Eli begins to build his life again after the events of the first book. This time he teams up with a card shark called Bridget who is trying to escape the life that she is in at the moment. Meeting on a train, Eli ends up becoming her bodyguard of sorts. Unfortunately things take an unexpected turn. In this book Eli also finds out more about his ghostly companions.

Things take on a more supernatural turn when Eli finds himself up against an old order that permeates the echelons of power. In addition to this Eli’s relationship with his ghosts take an unexpected turn.

I absolutely love a mashup of supernatural and crime and this gives both in spades. 

I have been meaning to read some Alan Baxter books for ages,  and when this came out I bought it immediately.

To say I was impressed was an understatement because Baxter’s writing blew me away. I loved how he mixed the hard boiled crime with slight elements of supernatural horror to full blown cosmic horror.

One of the things that I liked about this was the way that the supernatural elements creep up throughout the stories and eventually crescendo in the final novella. Initially, the crime elements of the story take precedence and the ghostly elements are almost incidental. However, as the novellas progress this takes a one hundred and eighty degree roundabout turn and the supernatural becomes the main focus.

I loved this book, the characters, the hard edged action that is almost John Wick like in its execution and the mix of horror that runs throughout all the book.