Return To Darkness by Michael Laimo; Bad Moon Books; 2011; 320 pgs; $18.95 US

Those who have read Michael Laimo’s, Deep In The Darkness, know that the story ended on quite a depressing note.  Dr. Michael Cayle’s wife Christine had been impregnated by the leader of a band of monsters calls the Isolates and his daughter Jessica was held prisoner by them.  His wife had been transformed into one of the Isolates and gave birth to a baby monster.  When we last saw Michael he was contemplating suicide.

Return To Darkness picks up where the original novel left off with Michael still ruminating about suicide and wondering if the hanta virus he infected the monsters with is killing them off.   Michael decides to stay alive and hunt down Christine and Jessica to see if he can somehow remove them from the clutches of the Isolates.

The tension in Return To Darkness starts off with a bang and keeps the pace up throughout the novel.  That’s pretty much due to the intense first person narrative Laimo employs in Return To Darkness.  Dr. Michael Cayle’s thoughts are so pain and drug addled, that Laimo has his lead character screaming his thoughts to himself for almost the entire novel.  The narration is so effective, at points you’d swear that the not-so-good Doctor is screaming at the readers.

Too much of anything however quickly wears thin and I found myself hoping that the Doctor would occasionally just quiet down for awhile so the plot could progress in an orderly fashion.  Thankfully, Laimo must have realized this and included scenes where the Doctor interacted with characters other than himself or the monsters, giving me an opportunity to catch my breath and lower my blood pressure.

Return To Darkness is pretty much a stand alone novel as the Doctor provides plenty of back-story during the first half of the novel to allow new readers to catch up.  For those who consider Deep In The Darkness the author’s best novel (and I consider myself among those), purchasing Return To Darkness is a given.  For those new to Laimo and are curious about his work, or for those that are looking for something different but striking in their horror reading, Return To Darkness should fit the bill quite nicely.

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Jan 20, 2012

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