BOOK REVIEW | CRONE | KEITH ROSSON

 

BOOK REVIEW | CRONE | KEITH ROSSON

ABOUT THE BOOK

Eli Lamp is a broken man. An ex-detective, ex-addict, and long-grieving father whose daughter, Hannah, disappeared a decade before, Eli decimated his old life investigating her abduction and is now indebted to the Crooked Wheel, a local drug gang, as an enforcer. He lives in a rundown trailer at the edge of the woods, where he keeps Hannah’s room in pristine condition and tries to make it through one day at a time.

But when the son of the Crooked Wheel’s boss is found viciously murdered in a crime scene that doesn’t seem to add up, Eli receives a new order: Find out who the killer is and your debt to the Crooked Wheel is clear forever. You’re free. This pursuit brings him into the orbit of Avery Bryant, Hannah’s best friend and the last person to see her before she went missing. Soon, Eli and Avery are entwined in a hunt for answers that spans decades, stretches the realm of possibility, and brings churning to the surface a conspiracy linking not only these current tragedies but the buried sorrows of Eli’s past.

And though none of them dare say the word witch, at least not out loud, something lurks in the woods, bent-backed and black-eyed, clawed and vengeful, looming ever closer. . . .

REVIEW

Keith Rosson returns with his gritty new horror thriller, Crone.

One stormy night, Hannah Lamp gets into a blue van on Highway 101. Never to be seen again.

Torn apart by the disappearance of his only daughter, ex-detective Eli Lamp spirals into drugs and crime. Now working as an enforcer for the brutal leader of the local motorcycle gang, The Crooked Wheel, Lamp’s life is already far removed from his former career. But his past comes back to haunt him when a friend of Hannah’s returns to town.

Meanwhile, Lamp is called upon to investigate the murder of the motorcycle gang leader’s son. But as his investigation progresses, he discovers that the truth is far stranger than anything he could have imagined.

Blurring the lines between horror and crime, Keith Rosson’s new book, Crone, takes one of horror’s most underrated monsters and twists it beyond recognition.

Crone is a dark and often brutal tale of grief, obsession and terror made flesh.

Set in the same world as Coffin Moon, Crone is a gripping read that works on two fronts, both as a horror story and as a visceral crime tale.

As usual, Rosson’s writing is superb. His characters are often broken, with flaws wider than the Grand Canyon, but somehow he makes them feel believable and ultimately gives them some shred of decency that makes the reader root for them. And even though they do horrific things and make decisions that have you shaking your head in disbelief at how bad they are, you can’t help but like them.

On top of that, Rosson’s grime-crusted world drags the reader to the very underbelly of society, where violence, desperation and depravity sit alongside those small flashes of humanity that keep his characters from disappearing completely into the darkness.

Then, Rosson throws his customary holy hand grenade of strangeness into the mix that blows the whole story apart in ways that you don’t expect, with consequences ricocheting off the walls of the narrative.

And interestingly, Rosson seems to be building his own little universe of mythology as his books progress, with little linking motifs running through his stories. 

If you want a blood soaked tale of grief, revenge and obsession, with some supernatural weirdness thrown in, Crone has all those ticked on the receipt.

Oh, and one last word of advice - read the author’s note at the end.