Afraid

Afraid by Jack Kilborn is a horrifying book with a particularly satisfying ending.

I like cozies. I might as well be honest about that. Also happy ever afters. Further, in the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I read AFRAID by Jack Kilborn (with a view to a review) because Joe Konrath dared me to do so. He has a thick skin, and a strong stomach... and anyone who reads AFRAID needs both.

This is not a book to take on a fishing trip, especially if you've left your loved ones at home, alone. In fact, this book ought to come with a free membership of the NRA. You'll want your Brinks alarm turned on, and a loaded shotgun under your mattress if you read AFRAID in bed at night. You might want one of those panic button pendants, show more too.

Be warned. It is gruesome. AFRAID is the sort of book to be read aloud, in a large group. Maybe journalists who need to be kept up all night --for a slow-to-break story on Airforce On e, for instance-- or secret types on a stakeout, would get a bang out of AFRAID.

The villains are seriously, SERIOUSLY, nasty. My own most horrible villain (Insufficient Mating Material) rendered his victims insensible, had his wicked way, then took a small plug of pubic hair for a souvenir. Jack Kilborn's baddies do a great deal more than that. You get a sense of the horrors to come when a faceless bad guy sits on his first victim's bed, and when she asks what he's going to do to her, he says "Everything."

And that's just page 7.

This book contains some sick stuff. Nothing is off limits. Think Hannibal Lecter times five --or six by my count-- with the absolute might and force of the US government backing them up...or at least covering them up.

The pace is relentless, the characterization --unfortunately-- is excellent. You will care about these people. No one deserves to die the way so many do. The writing is crystal clear, like carved coal, dark, sparkling, with more than an evil glint. There's no silliness, no messing about, and nothing strikes you as implausible at the time, even if some of the violence is over the top.

You won't want to put down this book until you reach the last line. It's a good last line. Really good.

Afraid is a horrifying book with a particularly satisfying ending. I thoroughly recommend it.

best wishes,

Rowena Cherry
SPACE SNARK™ show less

First of all, I think this book is mis-categorized as horror. In my opinion, it's not a horror novel. It's a suspense thriller novel. A lot of people say this book deeply scared them, but I didn't find this book scary at all. It relies on a lot of blood and gore to scare you, but that sort of stuff isn't scary to me. It's more like a cop out for true horror. So that's why I think it's just a thriller with lots of gore. However, that's not to say I didn't enjoy this novel. I did. I think it's a finely written work, and I felt very invested in the characters. They all seemed really real to me, and I cared about what happened to them. The only character I felt fell a bit flat was Josh. And the story was very interesting. I haven't read show more anything quite like it before. All in all this is a great read, but if you're expecting something truly terrifying, not just gross, you might want to try something else. show less

Afraid is billed, right on the cover, as "A masterpiece of unrelenting horror" (according to James Rollins). It is neither of those things. What it is, is splatterporn. It is an orgy of violence for violence's sake, a pulp novel that makes sure to hit all the clichés, one after the other, in an unrelenting pounding of one note, over and over again.

Real horror, real suspense works with fear, building and cultivating it until the reader senses a pervasive air of dread. Afraid, meanwhile, starts out with horrific acts of violence lovingly described in intricate detail, and then -- rather than stepping back and allowing the reader time to breathe and the novel to build character and setting, thus providing conduits through which the show more audience can become invested in the story -- it lumbers from one violent act to another, thumping its metaphorical fist into character after character without pause until well after the halfway point of the story. Yes, the violence is sickening and shocking -- at first -- but eventually, one's senses become dulled to it, and I found myself, more than once, rolling my eyes and saying out loud to the room, "This is stupid." The novel seems far more interested in the pornography of violence than in plot or character. There is no horror, no suspense here. The plot, what little there is, plods from checkpoint to checkpoint: Old couple, still in love? Kill 'em. Single mother, struggling to keep her life together? She's hot; sexualize and fetishize all violence done to her. Greedy townspeople? Well, they've got to go too, especially that stuck-up pretty girl from highschool and her dumb, Moose-like boyfriend. Oh, and don't forget to repeatedly threaten the women with rape, because nothing makes for a good story than more pervasive sexism (and other than one throwaway reference late in the novel, of course the men never have to worry about that particular type of violence; that's just silly).

I wanted to put the book down at page 53. That was the point at which I found myself deeply bored with the continual slashing and hacking, and disappointed that the plot itself still had not surfaced. I pressed on, however, out of some weird sense of pride, as the prose itself was not challenging, which meant the whole would be a quick read.

To be fair, if I had put the book down, I would never have known that finally, well into the novel, there are small pockets where the narrative slows enough to do more than simply provide thumbnail sketches of the characters. However, I would have also missed some shocking errors in writing/editing that signalled that I wasn't off base in my initial assessment of this story. On page 152 of my edition, the following occurs:

Duncan's heart ached, but he didn't cry--maybe he was finally all out of tears. More than ever he wanted Mom, wanted to give her a huge hug. She'd protect him. She'd make it better.

But Mom wasn't here.

Standard foreshadowing from the point of view of a young child. No problems there. But then five pages later, I hit this:

Duncan's lower lip trembled, but he didn't cry--maybe he was finally all out of tears. More than ever he wanted Mom, wanted to give her a huge hug. She'd protect him. She'd make it better.

But Mom wasn't here.

Um, yeah. Five pages between duplicate passages, and no one noticed? It's true that at this point the narrative switches back and forth between characters' points of view, and there is some overlap in events, but that shouldn't result in word-for-word reiterations. This book is not labelled as an advance or uncorrected proof, so I can only assume that it is, indeed, the copy that's gone out to bookstores everywhere. Unfortunately, this is not the only duplicate passage, as only a paragraph and a half later on page 157, there is this:

Duncan recalled Bernie's lecture, about how bad it hurt to get burned. He didn't want to burn to death. He didn't want to get burned at all, not even a little bit. He'd rather get shot.

which is duplicating this, from page 142:

He recalled Bernie's lecture, about how bad it hurt to get burned. He didn't want to burn to death. He didn't want to get burned at all, not even a little bit.

I'm not sure if these are simple oversights, or a marker of disrespect for the audience that results in a less rigorous authorial/editorial process. Either way, they were simply the cappers on a predictable narrative. At times, I could almost believe that the whole was to be taken as tongue-in-cheek, but given a lack of signals supporting that -- other than the ridiculousness of the scientist with a superintelligent monkey sidekick and the brief blaming of Canada for the "terror" loosed on the townsfolk (I'm a Canadian, and I laughed myself sick at the intimation) -- I had to believe that the book was meant to be taken seriously.

Sadly, this is a story about gore, and little else. The eventual reveal of the source of the terror is underwhelming, the solution to the town's plight is obvious, and the fates of the main characters are predictable, down to who lives and who dies. This is neither suspense, nor horror. I suppose it counts as "action," but that's basically because when the various characters aren't being tortured and beaten, they're running around trying to escape the torture and beatings.

(I also read the included excerpt from Trapped, by the same author, and while it seems to set up a tantalizing premise, I get the strong sense it shakes out pretty much exactly like Afraid, and thus isn't worth my time.)

In the end, Afraid was a rather large disappointment. I doubt I'll ever willingly pick up anything by this author again, under this penname or any other. If I want to read a frightening pulp novel, I'm much more likely to reach for something by John Saul or Dean Koontz (or upgrade completely, and read something by master horror writer, Clive Barker); if I want to read about violence for violence's sake, I'll reread American Psycho. At least it had something more to say than, "Yay, gore!" show less

Don’t start this book until you’ve got time to read it straight through, because you won’t be able to stop; Kilborn’s brutal story takes you by the throat and doesn’t let go until it’s over. Safe Haven, Wisconsin, which sounds like about as safe a place as you could be, is the site of a helicopter crash that has unleashed a military horror. The few who escape from the evil that is systematically destroying the town must figure out not only a way to save themselves, but also to protect the rest of civilization. I’ve rarely read a book that seemed to eat me up the way this one did. Not for cold, dark nights when you’re all alone, but definitely recommended.

This is a real Suicide Squad -- not some namby-pamby rogues gallery. A half-dozen sociopaths are given CIA mental conditioning and drug therapy. Then they crash land in sleepy-town, USA. Chaos ensues.

I've never read anything as fast-paced as this. Chapters are short, sentences are short, scenes are short. Although the characterization is light, the action is visceral enough and quick enough that you want to see more. You might think it's a Stephen King-style thriller from the cover and blurb -- slow burn, supernatural junk, psychic powers for no reason -- but it's a far cry.

It reminds me of a high-budget B-movie where they went heavy on script and light on special effects. The horror comes from how realistic (as in the killer is a show more criminal trained to be a soldier, not Pennywise the clown). show less

If you like stories with magic, unicorns and happy endings, this is not what you're looking for. There are no happy endings in store for you here...

"Afraid" by Jack Kilborn dives into your deepest fears and leaves you there to your imagination, there is no turning back after the first page, each word leaves you breathless, wanting more. Like you have probably read, this book takes place in a small town that is basically cut off from the outside world. One quiet night turns into a nightmare when 5 trained, biochemically modified killers crash into the forest in the town.

I found myself reading this book in the semi-dark when it was shipped to me, but by the time I got to page 50, I had every light possible on in my bedroom. I don't think show more I ever let the book out of my hands once I got it. If you like scary, this is the book for you, no question about that.

I believe that night I slept with my back to the wall and clutched my childhood teddy bear. You have been warned. show less

You’ll read it in a day—but it’ll keep you up all night

It may be the worst-kept secret in publishing that Jack Kilborn is the pseudonym of novelist J.A. Konrath. Fans of Konrath’s Jack Daniel’s serial killer novels know that he’s not afraid to depict graphic violence. That knowledge is not going to prepare you for what you’ll face in Afraid.

The plot is high concept, and simple enough to summarize in just a few sentences. Every major government, including our own, is experimenting in “Red-ops.” Why turn soldiers into killers, when it’s so much easier to turn killers into soldiers? And if you can use cutting-edge technology to enhance them, so much the better. One such Red-ops team of psycho killers accidentally crash show more lands in bucolic Safe Haven, Wisconsin. It’s a terrible, terrible mistake, as the team launches into what they’ve been trained to do--kill and maim in the most terrifying (and may I add disgusting) way imaginable. Only the elderly town sheriff has begun to suspect that it may not be a mistake after all…

And it was that last bit, in the book’s description, that got me. Not a mistake? What do they want? I was hooked. I mean HOOKED. I had important work to do, but once I had started it, I could not stop reading this book until I finished it. I read it in less than a day. The pacing of the novel was relentless, as was the subject matter. I had been told that this was a gory novel. In no way does that prepare you for the level of sickness you will encounter in this novel. I can not emphasize enough that Afraid is not for the faint of heart. If it were a film, I wouldn’t have made it through the first five minutes. (Let’s all hope they never make a movie.) Kilborn’s creative, I’ll give him that. I don’t even know how a healthy mind goes to the places his went.

Ultimately, I give the novel four stars. When all was said and done, I was mildly disappointed in what all the furor was about. Was it enough to justify the events of the novel? And I wasn’t sure, but I might have found a small plot hole. Mostly, I just can’t give five stars to anything this revolting. On the plus side, there was actually some pretty fantastic storytelling. I’m a total sucker for characters like Stubin and Mathison. In addition to unremitting suspense, Kilborn threw in enough twists, reversals, and out-and-out surprises to keep me constantly on my toes. As much as I’d like to deny it, Afraid was damn entertaining.

If I sound conflicted, it’s because I am. I’d like myself better if I liked this book less. This is sick, sick, sick stuff y’all. I’m going to recommend it to my mom—she loves psycho killers! Will I read Kilborn’s next one? You betcha. show less