I just finished reading a true crime book that was more than a little disturbing because its so close to home and I would like to believe that stuff like that doesn't happen.

The year was 1989 and I was fresh out of high school and just starting college in the Spring. I was born in Deep South Texas so stories of curanderos weren't new to me. Some even set up shop in my home town, but up until that year I had never heard of santeria or palo mayombe, and voodoo was one of those religions practiced in remote areas of the Caribbean or New Orleans. Mark Kilroy, a twenty-one year old pre-med student, was snatched from the streets of Matamoros while down on Spring Break and in the months following his abduction a search for answers led to the Rancho Santa Elena and a grisly tale unfolded. The stuff of nightmares occurred not forty miles from my home.

I bought the true crime book Cauldron of Blood: The Matamoros Cult Killings by Jim Schultze twenty years ago and it has sat on my bookshelf unread until now. Perhaps it was because the horror was so close to home that I waited until now to read the horrifying tale of drug-smuggling, the occult and ritual cannibalism.

The monster in this tale of terror Adolfo De Jesus Constanzo, a practitionaer of dark arts, inspired his disciples with a charismatic power and led them to commit unspeakable acts of torture, mutilation and murder. Sara Maria Aldrete, an honor student and cheerleader at Texas Southmost College in Brownsville was his High Priestess, living a bizarre secret life involving blood sacrifice. Elio Hernandez Rivera was the head of a powerful drug-dealing family and believed that drinking human blood would make him invincible.

Jim Schutze may have written the book, but he wasn't here when all this was going on. The setting for the story stretches from matamoros to Brownsville and South Padre Island all the way to the Miller International Airport in McAllen. The book mentions places I know too well. I have stayed in the Holiday Inn in Brownsville where Constanzo often stayed. I have been to the Miller International Airport in McAllen countless times.

A passage from the book illustrates the fear that was circulating at that time:

And the word raced across the Valley, in both Mexico and the United States. According to the rumor, the narcosatanistos, as they already were being called in a freshly minted Mexican media word, had been cannibalizing small children and had vowed to take more in retribution for the arrests. Parents rushed into the streets of Matamoros and clutched up their children. Outside the public schools in Brownsville, cars were lined up and drivers were angrily honking their horns, fighting to get up to the door and rush in to take their children home. There was heart-stopping panic in the land. A rumor spread that a certain rural church had been used by such people: it was burned within an hour of the first spread of the rumor.

The panic wasn't only in Matamoros and Brownsville. It struck my home town. People were terrified for their children. And the place where that rural church once stood is only a few miles from where I sit and write. I had to escort my brother to baseball practice and keep a close watchful eye on him. It was in the air. People were scared.

Now that I have read the book I find myself not wanting to believe that such evil can exist in the world today, but it can't be denied that something terrible and horrifying beyond belief happened at the Rancho Santa Elena in the Spring of 1989 and a curandero was called in to perform an exorcism before torching the shack that had been Constanzo's temple.
 

Absolute Fear by Lisa Jackson was one of those books that can make a reader stop and say, “I didn’t see that coming.” Agatha Christie mastered the twist endings that immortalized her books. Move over, Ms. Christie, you have some competition. With all its plot twists Absolute Fear is a page turner that won’t let you put it down until the final thrilling end and an epilogue that leaves the lives of the characters open for a sequel.

Lisa Jackson breathed life into her characters by giving them such intriguing back stories that a reader of her novels wants to go back and read more, hoping that each of the character’s lives warranted their own novels.

The gothic setting of Our Lady of Virtues Hospital and the eerie past it holds is enough to make chills run up your spine with the feeling that it’s no place I would want to be alone, especially with a murderer on the loose who kills in ritual fashion tattooing his victims with cryptic numbers. Our Lady of Virtues also plays into the back story. This is not the only serial killer associated with the mental hospital.

The unstable murderer is obsessed with palindromes and his focus is on Eve Renner who throughout the course of the novel digs up some dark secrets from her past. But the true identity of the manipulative killer was entirely unexpected.

Absolute Fear was a delightfully chilling read from beginning to end and leaves a reader wanting more of Lisa Jackson’s work. It is no wonder she is labeled as a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author.

 

It seems like an eternity since I last made an entry in my blog. I've been trying to get my novel published for almost two years, and I know I have written articles about overcoming discouragement, but that doesn't mean I don't get discouraged myself sometimes.

Before the summer I queried another agent who requested my entire manuscript. You can imagine how excited I got that she expressed an interest in reading the whole thing and not just a few chapters. I emailed the manuscript and waited an entire month without hearing anything back. I wrote her again to inquire as to the status of my novel. She wrote back and said that she hadn't read it yet, but would get back with me the next day. The next day came with a rejection letter. It hit me harder than any other I have had in the past. I was left hanging for a month only to get a rejection. It took me a long time to get over the discouragement, and I'm still battling it.

Today I took another route. I'm aiming for one of the smaller presses and queried an editor directly. I have my fingers crossed.