Suzanne Heath, a ticket seller at Coney Island in 1909, has the gift and curse of clairvoyant powers. The father of a friend she works with is a policeman investigating the murders of people with their faces caved in and asks Suzanne to help out with her supernatural skills.

Suzanne meets and befriends a black man named Cittie who follows her away to Coney Island, and she must pretend not to be with him because of the interracial social unacceptability of the era. I liked Cittie's character and wished sooner he was a more integral part of the story.

Fans of historical supernatural fiction. Particularly those interested in Coney Island circa 1909.

The writing was full of long, weighty paragraphs which usually slow down my reading, however, the vocabulary was smooth and less 1900s than expected. Somehow--and this is a credit to the skill of the author--it sounds authentic for that era. Most of the dialogue was strong and seemed authentic as well. I enjoyed how Coney Island as a setting was portrayed.

While reading I kept thinking in shades of Stephen King's The Dead Zone. Only Suzanne is Johnny Smith and she isn't as effective with her powers as Johnny (more on that shortly). Suzanne's visions seem more accurate and stronger of past events than the future. Unlike King's amazing tale, there isn't as much story, pacing or much 'hell' referenced in the title until halfway through the book. Most of the first half is spent with Suzanne seven years removed from the Coney Island amusement park murders, with her soul-searching and coming to grips with being a freak for her powers at a school with other young girls.

The story moves better once we return to 1909 and back to the murders but Suzanne's psychic powers annoyed me at times. It seemed all too convenient for her visions to be cloudy when she was at murder scenes and yet touching just about anything else she would get clear visions. I couldn't get past what seemed to be a story contrivance versus a natural progression of the tale. As for the murders? The identity of the killer started out very much like one would expect from a mystery and I was curious to learn who the murderer was. There is a good attempt to make this a shocking reveal, so points for that.

In summary, it's somewhere teetering on the edge of "it's ok" and "I liked it." I wasn't ever scared or felt much fear for any character or situation which doesn't bode well as a horror read. It's probably better categorized more generically as supernatural fiction than horror and if I'd have gone in thinking that, I probably would rate this higher. The murders were told more than shown too much for my liking. I wished there had been more of the second half of the book in the first half, less flashbacks to the past--which I fully acknowledge is important to the story, but wish they had been streamlined to get back to the more compelling story (the 1909 murders). The title of the book makes it seem like a more gritty, dark horror novel, which it wasn't for me. I hope others enjoy this more than me, because the author does seem very talented. Unfortunately it's not one I'll be recommending.

2.75 stars, rounded. 4,970 Kindle locations. Approximately 251 pages.

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Created Sep 08, 2013 at 4:03pm • Submit your own review...