When I set out to read “Kill Whitey” by horror master Brian Keene I am not sure what I expected. Keene is an expert at creating situations and characters that are on one hand crazy, extreme and on the border of absurd—but at the same time you have to admit—quite believable. “Urban Gothic” is a great example of this.
As I started reading this first person narrative of Larry Gibson describing his obsession with a Russian immigrant and stripper, Sonya, which leads him to agree to kill Whitey, the badass owner of the strip club, while I was thoroughly engrossed I kept asking myself: “where’s the horror?”
Now, don’t get me wrong, Whitey is plenty horrific. He brings women over from Russia, hires them as strippers and treats them like livestock. When he finds out Sonya is pregnant, he wants to make her miscarry and force her to eat the fetus. Okay, that is horror but I was expecting something supernatural.
About the time I thought that wasn’t going to happen (maybe Keene was going the realistic route) the title of the book becomes the central supernatural element—Kill Whitey? Yeah, right. He is one hard mother****** to bring down. A descendant of the mad monk Rasputin, another man who was presumed dead quite a few times before it was true–Larry begins to think of him as real-life Jason Voorhies.
This one important supernatural twist propels this lean adrenaline rush of a novel forward as Whitey relentlessly pursues Larry and Sonya, leaving behind a path of corpses and other assorted detritus. While the Jason reference works, by the novel’s end Whitey moves beyond that to an almost indestructible and terrible force of nature.
I do not want to spoil any more of the fun. This all leads to one hell of a climax with little time to breath along the way.
I highly recommend yet another fantastic book from Mister Keene.
– George Wilhite
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
