A violent horror novel about an evil-worshipping psychic that
displays none of the fetching whimsy of Herbert's The Magic Cottage
(1987) - and, in fact, marks his backslide into the routine
ghoulish chills of Moon (1986) and its paperback predecessors, The
Rats, The Fog, The Survivor, etc. Herbert scores a few points for
his unusual setup, in which macho security-expert Liam Halloran
nabs his oddest assignment ever: to guard Felix Kline, mysterious
V.I.P. employee of the giant Magma corporation, against unnamed
threats. High-strong, cruel, arrogant about his unique ability to
divine minds as well as hidden mineral resources - hence Magma's
success - Kline intuits that someone's after his blood. Who? That
twist revelation comes only at the end of Herbert's patent
blood-and-fury tour of Kline's weird world, headquartered in an
all-white penthouse atop Magma's London skyscraper and in a
brooding rural mansion, and peopled by his international goon squad
- a cannibalistic Pole, two homosexual sadist Arabs, and a Yank
psycho. Biographical glimpses (with the accent on gore - e.g., the
Pole eating concentration-camp victims) of these henchmen and of
Kline intercut with bizarre turns: Halloran spots Kline walking on
water, sees a multitude of menacing forms in a nearby lake, is
threatened by the psychic's pet jackals. Halloran's romance with
Kline's pretty assistant (who beds the security man when she's not
busy being tied up and whipped by another) adds some base eroticism
to the frenetic action, which culminates in Halloran's discovery
that Kline's the point man for nasty ancient god Bel-Marduk - who,
along with Kline, gets his comeuppance in a noisy climax that
involves human sacrifice and dismemberment. An intriguing lead
character - Halloran's penchant for violence makes him particularly
susceptible to Kline's manipulations - and some effective settings
don't compensate for the excessive luridness and cliched,
pseudo-Lovecraftian premise. More repulsive than scary, energetic
but cheap. (Kirkus Reviews)
There is a house that holds a dreadful secret. "The Keeper", the psychic and the secret serve a force which threatens mankind itself.
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