If you mix in a composition of dark influences aspects of the psychological thriller, the mystery, the criminal genre, classic horror, all seasoned on occasions with a few drops of fantastic you find JD Barker like a good summary. Considering also a very his ability to give his characters a fascinating complexity between natural contradictions and unsuspected edges. Good and bad handled at will to confuse and trap us.
This young author has known how to make his own that crucible of infinite possibilities in which fears, morbidity and tension attract readers of all conditions with their strange magnetism. An American writer, from the same breed as Joe hill (the son of Stephen King), which has ultimately been successful. Because Barker is one of those vocational writers who has always played the role of storyteller, whether in newspaper articles, in the shortest narrative, or in those dark assignments in which every writer who waits for his moment surrenders to his role as mere ghost writer.
But stubbornness, knowledge and good work, usually end up bearing fruit and Barker is already one of the most recognized authors of that genre which also ends up crystallizing in very cinematographic plots already claimed by the leading producers of the film industry.
Once his daring foray into the prequel to the Dracula of Bram Stoker, his other novels also began to be known and published on this side of the Atlantic (as in the rest of the world, of course). So, if you like that fast-paced action on the threshold of the dark. You can't pass up the opportunity to meet this new great value.
Top 3 Recommended JD Barker Novels
The fourth monkey
It was the 90s and either from the novel or through a specific script, some psychothrillers not suitable for all audiences began to proliferate (and succeed). The thing began with the silence of the lambs and continued with Seven, The collector of lovers... Surely you remember those years in which going to the cinema to see one of those movies at least ensured that the relative would hold tight to you (hee hee). The point is that the idea is back.
The Fourth Monkey promises and delivers with the perspective of dark scenes, a certain feeling of claustrophobia, vague ideas that someone is about to occupy your mind... It all starts with Sam Porter, one of those detectives who perfectly serve the plot. His appearance is that of a confident guy, hardened in a thousand battles, back from everything after encountering the evil side of the human being day after day. But… what happens if we discover that the good old Sam Porter can also falter?
Without forgetting that, on the part of the CM, the unfathomable fourth monkey, everything has a disruptive reading in terms of the stereotype of the criminal on duty. Because CM does bad good. In other words, he strangely convinces us, every day, that learning from him is a kind of moral justice that he applies to get rid of the meanest guys, even more than him. Machiavellian principles for the bad guy does not seem so much to us, at times...
The greatest virtue of evil is that it can always be overcome, it can always find new channels of expression never harbored in a "normal" mind. The murderer in this novel is an inveterate meticulous detailer, capable of gradually dismembering his victims and making them arrive to their families those macabre reminders with which their sick mind feels that it has absolute control over fear, over life and over death.
His shipments can transform the most sober father or brother and sicken the strongest mother or sister. And he likes it more and more. To the point that Sam Porter no longer knows if it is sadism or an insane game in which everyone, including him, executes the planned movements... The fourth monkey is the one that has passed the phase of not speaking, not seeing and No listening. He is above all that...
The sixth trap
Opportunism is not the same as opportunity. And in this case, the timing of the current circumstances of our world is accompanied by fear of this new installment that, having read the above, ends up reaching levels of ecstasy of the terrifying.
First, because the current horror genre finds its most efficient preacher in JD Barker. Secondly, because under the first appearance of a noir genre, we end up discovering a volume turned into an investigative thriller in which the person being investigated is the devil himself. And finally because no known or imagined criminal was so intent on making his handiwork the legacy of Hell on Earth.
But it is also that the chilling analogies with current health issues, between viruses and sociological transformations never seen in our modern world, project us into that increasingly tangible space of the possible dystopia in which terror can end up ruling, rampant, becoming routine.
Hopefully it's not like that in the end and it's just the morbid atavistic look at horror, like Edith turning to salt for taking one last look at annihilated Sodom.
The book starts right where the previous installment ends: Sam Porter, until now the detective in charge of the case, has been removed from it and is increasingly suspicious, the largest hospital in the city is closed for quarantine due to the risk of contagion from the virus. SARS and among the sick are the policemen Clair and Klozowski, as well as Upchurch, the accomplice of the Fourth Monkey, who is torn between life and death. His survival is decisive for the Fourth Monkey to decide not to release the virus to the rest of the country.
When bodies begin to appear in different parts of the geography with the same pattern, the police are clear: the Fourth Monkey continues to act, and this time it is impossible for him to do it alone. Thus begins a race against time to stop one of the most fascinating and intelligent murderers ever known who has managed to terrorize an entire country.
The fifth victim
References is what you have. Sometimes the guidelines of the great referents mark paths that are finally taken up by the gifted apprentices.
I mean that in this novel the buried image of the mother of Anson Bishop, the criminal of the first part The Fourth Monkey, seems to be taken from the novel Mr Mercedes, by King. The maternal bond reaches the visceral and the spiritual, and You can end up achieving a supernatural transcendence from the instincts.
Porter remains engrossed in the maze of Bishop's case, despite being removed from it. Pulling new leads outside the official channels exposes him even more to the ingenious and perhaps powerful mind of the criminal, further intensified by that maternal connection that is he intuits as the plot progresses.
The recent death of Ella Reynolds is hardly a ghoulish distraction for Porter, not focusing his attention on the new case seemingly unrelated to the sinister Bishop. And therein lies the grace of every good plot, in those strange ties that end up bringing everything together, giving you goose bumps and leaving you speechless just before you know how it can all end.
Other interesting works by JD Barker are ...
Behind closed doors
Que JD Barker nos invite a entrar, bajo la premisa de que cerrará la puerta después, resulta una de esas extrañas tentaciones estremecedoras. Porque ya conocemos a Barker y su suspense de administración subcutánea… O sea que te despierta escalofríos como de las peores fiebres.
El perfecto y siniestro morbo que acerca a tantos lectores hasta el thriller más ominoso que parte de un intenso componente psicológico. A lo que Barker añade trepidante acción para convertirse en uno de los grandes del género actualmente. Bajo premisas que parecen evocar a resplandores llegados ya hace décadas hasta casas donde habita la locura… todo puede ocurrir aquí también, versión app.
Abby and Brendan Hollander are not happy. Married for years, their marriage is at a standstill. He works for the state investigating financial crimes and money laundering; She is a writer, her first novel was a bestseller and now she suffers from a block that prevents her from writing the second. Their savings are running out, as is their marriage, so they decide to go to couples therapy.
The therapist advises them that, to add spice to their relationship and their sex life, they download Sugar & Spice, the app of the moment that is triumphing all over the world and that she is convinced will help them. It works like truth or dare: if you choose "Sugar", you must do something spicy, and if you choose "Spice", you must overcome a challenge. At first it works and their relationship improves, but little by little everything becomes complicated and, without realizing it, they end up trapped in a dangerous game of life or death.
The last game
Whoever loves danger will perish in it, as the wise would say. Exposed to the sight or ear of twisted minds hidden beyond the screens or the airwaves, celebrities of any stripe can become the obscure object of desire for the most ominous purposes. It is never a good option to succumb to the morbidity of the call from the dark side. But there are always people willing to take the risk, taking refuge in their quiet daily life that seems safe from harm.
The controversial radio host Jordan Briggs has managed to become one of the most famous voices in the country, with a very personal style: she is unable to contain herself and always says what she thinks, however unpopular it may be, on an open mic in front of millions of listeners.
When one of his listeners, Bernie, offers to start a live game, Jordan sees it as the best way to start the morning and accepts, not realizing that he will inadvertently open a door to the past and the game of Bernie is going to become a death trap that will leave many victims in his path.
It is clear that Bernie wants revenge, and Jordan will understand that every action has its consequences... The police have limited hours to be able to connect the dots and anticipate this murderer who is always one step ahead.
Dracula The origin
Every prequel has that inherent risk of easy, sometimes ruthless criticism. Revisiting a classic and daring to propose fundamentals that every passionate about a saga or a character has already been in charge of building in his mind, has that slippery terrain warning.
But this time this aspect could be avoided. In fact, the recovery of annotations by the author endowed with that incontestable verisimilitude of the origin, of the source (even more so, the heir Dacre Stoker participating in the plot).
Because Bram Stoker has his own legend and his writings that, under the umbrella of the nostalgic and sinister nineteenth-century touch of his existence, addresses a possible dark relationship with his nanny Ellen Crone and a hinted vampirization of the boy who was and who could cure him of some type of anemia that ineffably led him to death.
And in that mix between reality and fiction that always dazzles lovers of this genre and those who are passionate about any historical character, Barker was in charge of setting the story of the days when Bram Stoker verified in his own flesh the power of life after death.
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