James Viscosi

Unfortunately it took me way longer to finish this book than it should have. Fortunately though it had nothing to do with the book but was instead due to life. And Christmas and traveling and sickness and work and well, you get the idea. Anyway, I heard about this book from a few different reviews and magazines; I was really looking forward to reading it. Overall, the book was fun and enjoyable and a good read. It deviated from the path I thought it was going to take which was good; it made for a better book.

The story focuses on Quentin Farmer, a land developer who has a plaza built in the town of Selden Falls. However, he only realizes after the groundbreaking that there is an ugly, eyesore, old church across the canal from his new plaza. Since Selden Falls is a small town and since Farmer is pumping a lot of money into the town, he is able to convince the mayor to destroy the church. This starts the ball rolling on a string of bad luck that seems to always involve a flock of crows. The bad luck grows and becomes worse, resulting in multiple deaths in differing ways.

Despite my issue of reading the book on a very inconsistent schedule, I had no problems remembering all the different characters. Everyone stood out as a developed person with their own traits and personality. As I mentioned at the start of the review, the plot of the story also went in unexpected directions. After reading the first 50-100 pages, I was expecting more old-school horror. Something where the crows would be the harbinger of bad events until the one big-bad crow appears and is defeated. Instead the crows became much more integral to the actions and transformations that occurred. On the negative side, there were a few characters that just disappeared from the story once their action scene were finished; nothing major but it would have been nice to see their story finish naturally. I liked and would recommend the book. It does have its gruesome parts but nothing overly crazy.… (meer)