The Satan Sleuth #3 - Devil, Devil

The third and final entry into The Satan Sleuth series of novels is probably the most gruesome of them all - and I'm not just referring to the blood and gore content.  This series, from the very beginning, has been one filled not only filled horrific acts of violence, but with psychological terror as well.  The criminals have been brutal and sadistic, and Philip St. George has been surprisingly creative and vicious when meting out justice to the perpetrators.  Author Michael Avallone definitely pays wonderful homage to those classic pulp tales of mystery, suspense, and horror of the past, rolling them all into one with each of the three books in this series.  It's just a shame this was the final book in the series (whether that was the author's choice or the publisher's choice, I have no idea), as The Satan Sleuth is some of the finest pulp fiction I've ever read.

Devil, Devil takes Philip St. George on a journey into the true depravity and duplicity of human nature.  It all starts with the beheaded bodies of young females being found throughout New York City, each body carved with markings of the devil.  The police are baffled, and only one FBI agent is willing to believe this is the work of a cult of devil worshipers.  St. George is on the outside of the whole thing until a reporter reaches out to him, revealing her own connection to the coven of thirteen men and women who have been performing hellish ceremonies and rituals for some time - all led by the alluring and bewitching Sister Sorrow.  She goes to St. George for help, but before she can reveal the location of the meetings, she mysteriously drops dead of cyanide poisoning - without any indication as to how!  Since the death of his wife, St. George has dedicated his life to eradicating evil in whatever form it takes, and he once again dons his Satan Sleuth persona to search out this Sister Sorrow and put an end to these ritualistic murders.

Due to the nature of this story, there is more sexual content (not actual sex mind you, but descriptions of the naked form), as the rituals are performed while the participants are naked, and even poor St. George, when he unwittingly has the tables turned on him and finds himself tied naked on a sacrificial altar.  Avallone's writing is provocative without being explicit, leaving much to the imagination, while at the same time making it very easy to picture the bodies, particularly those of Sister Sorrow and St. George (who, as can be assumed, has all the features of a god).  I do give Avallone credit for not being biased - he offers up male and female descriptions equally, which is rare, since most male authors focus more on the female form than the male.

In true pulp style, Avallone offers up the horror of the deaths ... the mystique of the rituals and alleged witchcraft ... the mystery of finding Sister Sorrow ... the action and adventure of stopping the Satanic cult ... and the sexuality of the men and women in the story.  Basically, everything that made pulps so popular in the early part of the 20th Century is present and accounted for in this one story, making is a real page-turner.  It's also an interesting commentary on society and people who are so easily led away by promises of power, beauty, and unrealistic dreams.  As the story reveals, the members of the cult are theatrical agents, newspaper men and women, architects, artists, magazine editor, engineers, actors, and other professional men and women.  These are not poor, confused people who think the cult will help them rise above their circumstances - these are people who have already reached an apex in their lives and still want more, no matter the cost.  Definitely a level of truth to that in the real world, that's for sure...

A well-written, captivating story that ends with a statement I think anyone who reads this series can agree with - Philip St. George was alive.  Long live the Satan Sleuth!  (Hmmmm, this would make a great comic book series for Dynamite Entertainment, who publishes such comics as Vampirella, Ash vs. the Army of the Dead, James Bond, and other titles that are so similar in theme and genre ... someone needs to suggest it to them!)

RATING:  9 penthouse balconies perfect for cult ceremonies out of 10 for a terrifying tale of just how depraved mankind really can be!

The Satan Sleuth #2 - The Werewolf Walks Tonight

In the forest ... the moonlit forest ... the werewolf walks tonight ...

Okay, yeah, so when I read the title to this book, I couldn't help but fit the words into the song made famous by The Token.  But there is definitely nothing lighthearted about this book.  As with the first book in this series by Michael Avallone, the story is very dark, very violent, and very steeped in the depravity of mankind.  One has to wonder where Avallone gets his inspiration for stories such as this - did he just have a very vivid imagination, or did he see the depravity of man in the real world and simply tweak it a bit for his novels to fit the story he was writing?  Whatever the case, these Satan Sleuth books are definitely not for the faint-hearted!

The Werewolf Walks Tonight deals with exactly that - a werewolf.  Or, at least, a creature that the people of the small town of Fletcherville can't help but think is a werewolf.  With four extremely gruesome deaths, the victims' throats savage torn out, the entire town is frightened.  And the disappearance of one young woman, Helen Trick, only makes matters worse.  The sheriff thinks Helen simply took off with a man, but Philip St. George - the man otherwise known as The Satan Sleuth - believes the woman's disappearance is connected with the vicious murders.  He also does not believe the attacks are that of some supernatural lycanthrope; whatever it is, St. George firmly believes the thing committing these atrocious crimes is human, in some form, and must be stopped at all costs.

So, St. George leaves his life of luxury in New York and makes his way to the rural town of Fletcherville on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee - a town that time, and the two states, has basically forgotten, leaving its citizens to their own devices.  Donning the disguise of a mild-mannered medical supply salesman, St. George shows up in town to begin his investigation and his hunt for this disciple of Satan.  Deacon Williams, the first victim and the town's only pastor, was found down by a small river, hanging upside down from a juniper tree.  And it's with that first victim, and at that first murder site, that St. George begins his search.  He discovers a water-soaked Bible at the bottom of the river, and on the inside front cover, he finds a terrifying message that warns of the danger and deceit let loose upon the town.  The banker, the drifter, and college drop-out were all victim of circumstance, and the store owner and his son, later victims, were in the wrong place at the wrong time, hunting something they were not prepared to face.  But after hunting down the killers of his wife in the last book, St. George is prepared for anything.  Or so he believes.

Avallone takes readers on a rather slow journey through Fletcherville - through the hearts and fears of its citizens, as well as through the methodical and cunning plans of his Satan Sleuth.  Avallone does become repetitive somewhat with his constant questioning and philosophizing about the potential supernatural existence of the werewolf, something he also did in the first book with the rationalization of the cult members and their desire for power through the evils of Satan.  There are moments where I wish the action would move faster, but Avalloen takes his time with building up the suspense and the ultimate revelation regarding the creature of the night terrorizing Fletcherville.  It does all lead up to a deadly battle for survival at the end, and the one who ultimately brings down the evil atrocity is not who you would expect!  Avallone manages to keep some of the secrets in the story close to his chest, so when they are revealed at the end, they come as much more of a surprise.

 

One aspect of the story that I enjoyed was the setting.  Being from Kentucky, it's always nice to read a book set in my home state, even if somewhat tangentially.  Avallone even makes a short reference to a case of mail fraud in Louisville (my home city!) that the FBI believes more important than reports of a werewolf running around Fletcherville (p. 62).  There's also the scene where St. George is talking with his landlady, trying to explain his reasons for believing the attacks were not the work of a werewolf, but of a very human man, and she responds with, "What's that got to do with the price of eggs..?" (p. 102).  This is a phrase I have often used, and still use today, when someone talks about something that has absolutely no relation to the discussion we are having - perhaps it is a Kentucky/Tennessee saying?

 

With two books read, only one left to go in this great little series...

 

RATING:  9 silver-painted bullets out of 10 for terror, horror, and supernatural all mixed into one story that will really make you think hard about just how humane humanity really is!

The Satan Sleuth #1 - Fallen Angel

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover - but in this instance, I'm asking you to not judge a book by its name.  I honestly cannot say how I came across this series.  I don't recall where I first saw it, or what made me look into it; all I know is that once I decided to try and find this series, I was surprised at just how difficult it was to locate all three books!  One would think this is some best-selling rarity that everyone is after (although, more likely, it was simply a series with a low print run, thus making copies harder to find).  After a lot of searching, I was able to locate books 2 and 3, but finding the first book took a lot longer.  But, as always, patience offers its reward, and I came across a copy in fairly good condition on eBay for a price I was willing to pay.  So, once in hand, I figured I might as well read it and see whether it was worth the purchase.

"The Satan Sleuth" is a three-book series written by Michael Avallone.  Avallone was a prolific author who wrote a number of movie and television tie-in books, one of which is a book I would LOVE to find - the original novelization of Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3-D (not the later, revised edition written by Simon Hawke).  Published in 1974 and 1975, "The Satan Sleuth" tells the adventures of Philip St. George, whose wife is brutally mutilated and dismembered by a cult of Satan worshipers - which leads to St. George adopting an alternate persona to not only go after the group of individuals who killed his wife, but to begin a crusade against any and all like-minded people who choose to use Satan, the supernatural, and the unknown as a shield behind which to commit the most heinous atrocities against mankind.  This first novel, Fallen Angel, provides readers with the gory details of just what led St. George to abandon his carefree, millionaire lifestyle to don a cloak, wear a cross, and take up the weapons needed to send the sick, twisted minds of cultists and Satan worshipers to the very hell they claim to serve.

The prose is very much pulp style, with little dialogue and more focus on the characters inner-motivations and their actions.  It is definitely dark and morbid, and while Avallone does not go into explicit gory detail with the ritualistic murder of St. George's wife, the description he does provide is more than enough to create horrific images in the reader's mind - enough to make him or her immediately sympathize with St. George and encourage him on his newfound crusade.  Definitely not for the weak of heart!  Yet, at the same time, without the horrific nature of the crime, St. George's motivation would be lacking.

The book is divided into three subtitled parts - "Fallen Angel," "Devils From Hell," and "The Redeemer."  Each section is basically an act - "Fallen Angel" describes the descent, of St. George learning about his wife's death - seeing it - and then making the decision to do what the police cannot.  "Devils From Hell" provides readers with a glimpse into the four killers - three men and one woman - and the consequences of their actions (for three of them, anyway).  "The Redeemer," the final act, is the climactic showdown between St. George a/k/a The Satan Sleuth and the Wolfman (not literal), the leader of the cult who took his wife from him.  I gotta give Avallone credit, he definitely knows how to use irony, as St. George picks off the killers one by one, putting them in the ultimate torturous situations, saving the best for last.  But the question is - how far is St. George really willing to go to avenge his wife?  Once he answers that question, it sets the stage for the rest of his life!

In a way, this is a much darker version of Dan Curtis' television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.  And what's interesting about that is that the Kolchak TV show ran from 1974 to 1975, the same exact years this series was published. Makes you wonder exactly what was going on in American society at that time, that such dark, supernatural stories such as The Satan Sleuth and Kolchak would be written for consumption by the public at large!  Although neither series lasted long - Kolchak lasted one season, and The Satan Sleuth only lasted three books.  Perhaps the timing was off, because I could easily see The Satan Sleuth as a television series today, and it would likely do pretty good (particularly since today's television seems to allow much more graphic violence to be depicted than back in the mid-70s when the series was published).

"Fighting for reason and right against the Devil and his disciples" is what the tagline reads on the front of this first book.  And it's a pretty accurate description of what's inside, although the four killers turn out to be only playing at devil worship - none of them actually believe (which, in my mind, makes what they did all the more terrible, because it simply goes to show just how depraved and twisted their natural being is that they could do what they did for no other purpose than just for kicks!).  We'll see what the second and third book hold in store and whether The Satan Sleuth actually faces down true supernatural or the Devil himself!

RATING:  7 tarot cards left at the foot of the stairs out of 10 for providing fans of mystery, crime, and supernatural with a different kind of dark knight detective!