BOOK REVIEW | COFFIN MOON | KEITH ROSSON

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

It's the winter of 1975, and Duane Minor, back home in Portland, Oregon after a tour in Vietnam, is struggling to quell his anger and keep his drinking in check, keep his young marriage intact, and keep the nightmares away. Things get even more complicated when his thirteen-year-old niece, Julia, is sent across the country to live with her Aunt Heidi and Uncle Duane after a tragedy. But slowly, carefully, guided by Heidi's love and pa-tience, the three of them are building a family. 

Then Minor crosses the wrong man: John Varley, a criminal with a bloody history and a trail of bodies behind him. Varley, who sleeps during the day beneath loose drifts of earth and grows teeth in the light of the moon. In an act of brutal retaliation, Varley kills Heidi, leaving Minor broken with guilt and Julia shot through with rage. The two of them are left united by only one thing: the desire for vengeance. 

As their quest brings them into the dark orbit of immortal, undead children, silver bullet casters, and the bevy of broken men drawn to Varley's ferocity, Minor and Julia follow his path of destruction from the gritty al-leyways of 1970s Portland to the desolate highways of the Northwest and the snow-lashed plains of North Dakota - only to have him turn his vicious power back on them. Who will prevail, who will survive, and what remains of our humanity when our thirst for revenge trumps everything else?

REVIEW

True Grit meets Near Dark in Keith Rosson’s latest vampire revenge thriller Coffin Moon.

Set in 1970’s US, the book centres on Duane Minor, a Vietnam Vet. After debunking from the army, Duane is now running his in - laws’ bar and living with his wife Heidi and his sister’s niece, Julia, who has come to live with them after her mother killed her abusive father in front of her. 

Whilst working bar duties one night, Duane sees two thugs from a local biker gang talking to his mother in law. The two thugs become a regular fixture until Duane discovers that they are peddling drugs out of the back room. As a man who has experienced his fair of problems in the past, Duane kicks them out on their ear. His actions have terrible repercussions that changes his life forever.

Mixing hard boiled action with vampires, Keith Rosson’s Coffin Moon is a lean hard story of revenge following tragedy. 

Rosson effectively draws from vampire mythology to create a tense thriller that wears its influences on its sleeve. The vampires themselves are reminiscent of the blood suckers in 30 Days of Night, with the sensibility of Anne Rice and the hard edges of Near Dark. 

The story is engrossing and with a set of characters that are suitably complex with an air trauma and grief driving their actions (for good or ill). Playing out like an old fashioned western, Coffin Moon is a gritty revenge drama that keeps the reader turning until its inevitable conclusion. Highly recommended.