Classic Yuck!

The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, c2010.
424 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

Yancey's follow-up to The Monstrumologist is great; I think an even better book than the first. As in The Monstrumologist there is plenty of gruesome gore and supernatural violence - bodies turn up flayed, eviscerated, and missing eyes and faces. There are basements full of green sewage and dead bodies. What raises this book above all the ick is it's finely crafted plot and superbly drawn main characters - Dr. Warthrop the late 19th century monstrumologist and his orphaned assistant are fully developed and interesting characters.

The framing of this novel, like the first one, is a clever device attributing the story to the journals of a very old, deceased William Henry - giving the novel an air of authenticity. It also benefits from many references to people and events of the period, so that it reads a bit like historical fiction - but without the dullness that genre sometimes exhibits.

Our book group at the high school just finished Stephen King's Pet Sematary - and the contrast couldn't be greater. Where King's writing is sloppy and uneven, this book was tight and elegant. I'm definitely a fan.