Hell Hollow / Ronald Kelly Cemetery Dance / November 2009 Reviewed by: Publishers Weekly
Hell Hollow Ronald Kelly. Cemetery Dance, $40 (500p) ISBN 978-1-58767-186-9
Braiding together three distinct story lines—a coming-of-age tale
involving a quartet of adventurous kids, a woman's quest for vengeance
against a maniacal hitchhiker and the vigilante murder of a serial
killer—Kelly (Blood Kin) ingeniously blends
unapologetically graphic horror, supernatural suspense and poignant
mystery. When 12-year-old Keith Bishop is sent from Atlanta to rural
Tennessee for the summer, he stumbles across one of the area's darkest
secrets: a haunted backwoods hollow where, back in 1917, a nomadic
murderer allegedly "harvesting souls for Satan" was hunted
down and killed. Somewhere in the shadowy, kudzu-covered grove, the
madman's spirit remains alive, waiting for unholy retribution. Kelly's
use of dichotomy, from the contrasting urban and rural settings to the
generational dissimilarities between Keith and his 95-year-old
grandfather, helps to accentuate the intensity and otherworldliness of
evil in this well-crafted and wildly entertaining bloodcurdler. (Nov.)