Creative souls often are fluent in one medium and dabble in others. Authors play in bands, musicians paint, artists write stories and poetry. Yet usually, to find an individual who shows not just proficiency but magic is a rare event.
Keith Minnion’s art has been a staple of horror fiction for decades now, decorating book covers, magazines, and various other formats which have landed him in the elite category of modern dark visionaries. Most horror fans have not been aware of the artist’s long history of publishing credits, even having been nominated for a Hugo.
Why state the background here? Minnion’s debut novel, THE BONEYARD, feels like anything but a first effort. His command of language, characters, and setting display his vast experience while the imagery created of both beauty and carnage seduces the reader, pulling he or she into the pages with every scene.
Yet without a great story, the best writing and smooth storytelling would be just empty words.
THE BONEYARD is easily the best horror novel of 2014. It strays so far away from cliche and overused tropes yet frightens in a manner that sounds both familiar and unknown to the reader as we feel the story unfold through the razor sharp eyes of the characters. In the early 20th century, two boys form a bond after recovering from bizarre abductions, one during a biplane ride and the other through a treehouse. They find themselves forever changed and covered in hundreds of minute scars.
They have seen the Boneyard, a place not to speak of even though they realize their connection to it will follow them until their last breaths. Detective Fran Lomax discovers the threads of a mystery nearly a century old and finds himself drawn to the lure of what many have witnessed but few have survived.
What ensues is a fine mystery wrapped in horror and fantasy that can be finished in one sitting. Don’t, however. Let Minnion take you for a dark ride and fall under his spell. Don’t be surprised to wake up with a tiny bone or tooth within a tightened fist.
Steve Gilbert provides the chilling cover art for the novel. In the hardcover edition, Bad Moon includes the story “Close The Door,” which serves as a fitting coda for the novel.
Highly recommended and if there is any justice, will find itself on the final Stoker ballot.
- THE BEST OF ROD SERLING’S TWILIGHT ZONE - April 11, 2015
- BLIND RAGE - April 11, 2015
- Black Static #44-45 - April 11, 2015
- The Halloween Children - February 12, 2015
- Darkness Ad Infinitum - November 24, 2014
- Fear City - October 5, 2014
- The Boneyard - July 24, 2014
- Double Feature: A Novel - July 24, 2014
- Never Alone - July 24, 2014
- Blind Vengence - July 24, 2014
