Siren of Depravity by Gary FryMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
When Harry Keyes learns his brother was adopted and actually his half brother, he starts digging into his family's sordid past...
I got Siren of Deparvity from DarkFuse via Netgalley. Darkfuse ftagn! Since I'm a sucker for Lovecraft-flavored fiction and whatever DarkFuse puts out, this one was a no brainer.
Siren of Depravity is a dark tale of a man digging into things best left unearthed, both figuratively and literally. Harry Keys learns a family secret and tugs on that thread, unraveling the curtain his father put between his family and himself, revealing the rotting corpses and otherworldly horrors on the other side. It's part extreme horror, part Lovecraft, like The Girl Next Door with echoes of cosmic horror. Black magic, torture, rape, and buried alien evil are all on the menu.
The writing is pretty powerful, although Gary Fry uses the word 'furtive' like he had a fistful of coupons for it. Harry's a little on the thick side, always a a leap or behind of where I was in his investigation.
The rest of the characters are a little on the thin side, not much more than stock characters, although a tale like this doesn't really call for subtle characterization.The ending surpassed my expectations and actually made me shudder a couple times. As in most good horror, there is no happily ever after.
At its best, Gary Fry's Siren of Depravity reads like Jack Ketchum writing a Lovecraft pastiche. I mean that in the best ways. Three out of five stars.
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