Black Fire

This was a really good book. It was filled with suspense, horror, a little humor and was simply an all-around good read. Ed Farris had a really horrifying childhood. He and his mother were terrorized on a regular basis by husband and father, Michael Farris. Michael, a giant of a man, wasn't always mean and nasty. He was never the same after Eddie's baby sister died. An opportunity comes along that affords Ed and his mother to escape Michael and they take it, but without ruining the story for you, their happy ending isn't really happy, as Eddie soon finds out. The story flips back and forth between the present and the past, with each chapter giving the reader a small glimpse into what happened 15 years prior and what impact is has on the present. The story was well written and had me cheering for Eddie right up until the end....... and then, well..... read this one and find out. You will be glad you did.

In Black Hills, Pennsylvania, seven years ago, eighteen-year-old high school student Eddie Farris killed his abusive father, a prison guard in what the teen later called The Showdown. Eddie has since become a macabre caricature of a boogeyman; everybody talks about him in a ghoulish way. The isolation started with his girlfriend Rachel fleeing Black Hills right after the lethal Showdown. Still over the next seven years the lonely Eddie tries to overcome the Showdown mental aftermath by following his psychiatrist's advice to write it down; though that has not proven a total catharsis, it helps. Eddie constantly wonders if things would have been different if his younger sister Mary did not die when she was four in an accident, but also believes his dad accidentally killed her during one of his abuser moments. After seven years away, Rachel returns home accompanied by her son, Eddie's child no one bothered to tell him about. She claims that his father is harassing her with increasingly threatening phone calls, but Eddie killed his sire in the Showdown or did he? He notices someone in the shadows stalking him, taunting him, threatening him. BLACK FIRE is a terrific tale that keeps the audience guessing whether Eddie finally lost his tenuous grip on sanity, is being set up by others to lose his mind, or his dead dad dancing from the cemetery. Thus, readers will consistently consider between psychological suspense and horror as James Kidman slowly delivers clues then and now by rotating between the present and the Showdown. Strong thriller starring an intriguing individual who at best has crossed the line between rational thinking and insanity as his past catches up to him now perhaps with something evil from beyond. Harriet Klausner

Black Fire by James Kidman was a fast paced and gripping thriller, probably one of the best I read all year. Kidman tells the story in three ways, through the past and the present and the main character's journal. Now a journal may not sound interesting or scary, but hearing this anguished and tortured character's thoughts in his own words, just days after something so traumatic it isn't explained until the end of the book, really got under my skin. The story moves quickly after a few slow chapters that introduce the cast, and I found both the past and the present material intriguing enough that I read this in one sitting. The ending caught me off guard, and I have to admit that I went back to read the book a second time just to see all the clues I missed. It definitely messed with my head a bit! I highly recommend this book.