Afraid [NOOK Book]

Be Very AFRAID

Jack Kilborn knows that a small town in America's heartland is the perfect place to set a horror thriller: remote, surrounded by shadowy woods, and sparsely populated by residents who still live by an unlocked-door policy. After reading this book, residents of small towns everywhere will be locking their doors with deadbolts and going to bed with .357 Magnums under their pillows. I know I would.

The evil that descends upon this town, literally, in a helicopter, is motivated by the worst of all nightmares: inflicting pain and death for the sheer enjoyment of it. Sure, there is an agenda behind it all, but the reader realizes pretty quickly that the agenda is secondary to the basic goals of pain and death, in that order. And pain is dispersed among the townspeople in spectacularly grisly fashion. Mr. Kilborn is very good at visiting every possible nightmare from biting to stabbing, from burning to drowning, dismemberment to electric shock, with unremitting darkness and the occasional bout of claustrophobia thrown into the mix. One can almost picture Kilborn sitting at his keyboard and rubbing his hands in cackling glee as he speeds from one ghastly vision to the next.

This is not to say that the entire book is nothing but gore. The reason this book succeeds so well is that beneath the surface layer of horror is a tight, strong, well-founded story that follows the path of three (and a half) unlikely heroes as they battle not only to survive but to overcome the monstrosity that has derailed their lives. The fact that all of them have been clothed in very real flesh and blood by the author will keep the reader turning pages to see what happens next, because you will care what befalls each of them.

If you are seeking a page-turner that will have you switching on more lights as darkness descends and will linger in your mind long after you've reached the end, then AFRAID is the book for you. Just do yourself a favor and try to read it when you can consume it in one gulp. It's that good.

12 out of 13 people found this review helpful.

"Afraid" is one hell of a ride.

"Afraid" written by Jack Kilborn is one hell of a ride. No not a ride, more like an express elevator to hell. It starts fast and only picks up speed. It is relentless with enough horror, gore, action and twists to keep even the most hardcore adrenaline junkies satisfied. These are very bad people doing very bad things. You'll have a toe sucking good time. Don't worry, you'll figure out the reference. Kilborn is the pseudonym for JA Konrath writer of the "Jack Daniels" series of books. Don't expect the same laugh out loud humor. "Afraid" is like a good punch to the gut. It will leave you out of breath, shaking your head and saying to yourself, "Holy S***, I can't believe that just happened."

By Michael Hagen

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful.

Jack Kilburn provides a powerful exhilarating bloody thriller

Safe Haven, Wisconsin is a somewhat isolated town of under one thousand people with only one road in and out. Everyone knows everyone and law enforcement is handled by the Ashburn County Sheriff¿s Office as needed.

Everything changes when a helicopter crashes in Safe Haven. Two of the occupants are dead, but not by the crash. The survivors leave on a Red Ops mission to find ¿Warren¿. Bernie, Taylor, Santiago and Ajax are not just special ops soldiers; they are trained killers who enjoy torture. With a chip inside their respective heads to keep them focused and ¿Charge¿ to give them super skills, they begin destroying the idyllic pastoral town with the brutal murders. The town is cut off as firefighter Josh Van Camp calls Sheriff Arnold Streng about the helicopter crash. They are torturing and killing everyone they meet demanding information as to where is Warren until only Josh, Arnold, single mom Fran Stauffer with her young son Duncan and a runaway monkey stand in their way of finishing the mission with no witnesses left alive.

Although over the top (especially the latter half), fans will be hooked from the opening scene of this one sitting gory thriller. The action-packed story line starts off with blood and guts only to accelerate with more blood and guts flowing. The trained enhanced killers are sadistic and as nasty as one can imagine; they steal the show one intense bite at a time. Jack Kilburn provides a powerful exhilarating bloody thriller as a small town is being annihilated with sadistic military precision.

Harriet Klausner

4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.

Not for the faint of heart

Horror is not a genre I normally read. I started the book expecting chills & creepiness, and the first 150 pages were just gruesome and gory. But something about the way it was written made me want to know why all the bloodshed was taking place and what was going to happen to the surviving characters. It's hard for me to say I "enjoyed" this book, but okay, yeah, I did. The author imprinted some very vivid pictures on my brain with his words, and that's why I think he is an author worth reading again. In fact, I read the advance chapters of Trapped (found in the back of Afraid) and I really want to read the rest of the story. So if you are a fan of the Saw movies, or if you can at least stomach them for the story itself, this book is for you. If you can't, you might want to pass on these nightmare-inducing images.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Very readable!

Governmental experimentation on U.S. citizens is nothing new (in the fictional world). In Afraid, the debut from Jack Kilborn (alias of JA Konrath, author of the excellent "Jack" Daniels mystery series) the products of these experimentation, an elite, psychotic team tagged "Red-ops" have crash landed in the small U.S. town of safe haven. Worse than the thought of deranged, programed killers carrying out orders on a town of innocent people is the thought that they might not have landed on accident.

Compared to his other work, Afraid is just as brutal, but the tension is less over the top and nail biting and more of a complex reveal, not slow, but building on itself in levels until the full depth of the situation (and the plot) is realized. There is less humor involved, almost because there isn't time for the characters to begin to adjust to facing their own, painful, deaths and get cynical.

Kilborn makes a solid showing in the horror/thriller genre with a tale that's genuine and engaging enough to keep people reading, but neither over the top, or stodgy with attempts to build up the characters to make the audience sympathize with their plight.

Fans of David Morrell and Michael Crichton should take note, Kilborn is capable of holding his own against thriller veterans, delivering a solid, tension filled book that rates high on the readibility scale.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Fantastic Read

I had a hard time putting this book down. The plot twists and story draw you in and don't let go until the end.The book is set in Wisconsin, but you don't have to be from Wisconsin to relate to these small town characters just trying to live a quiet life. When a military helicopter crashes near a small lake, thier peaceful existence shatters. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to be very Afraid.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

Keeps you up!

Major page turner

Awesome

If I could rate this book 10 stars I would. It kept my attention and kept me wanting more. I'm a new Jack Kilborn fan....for life!

Quick Read

I could not put it down! I recommend for a quick read. Not for the faint of heart!

An all night read!

Could not put book down till I finished it! Scared thr sh@t out of me in some places! My heart raced through the whole book. Just when you think its calmed down, another on the edge of your seat chapter. This is a great thriller. Lots of blood and gore, not for teens. Trust no one, including the goverment! Recommed highly, well worth the money. Enjoy

Edge-of-your-seat nail-biter

This was the first book I've read by Jack Kilborn and it was excellent!! It was so gripping I didn't want to put it down. I was on the edge of my seat from the first page to the last. Highly recommended.

LOVED!

Good suspense in my opinion. Some parts I thought were corny, but overall very good.

Highly Recommend - check it out!

A great read if you don't mind some gore. It held my interest.

Totaally awesome!

I read thiboik a few years ago and it grabs u from page one and doesn't stop till the end!

Loved book

I love all his books ! Iam putting him on my fav author

Brilliant! It will chill you to the bone.

I really, really enjoyed this book. I have read several other books that he has written with Blake Crouch and each one is better than the next. The book is very well written and although the number of characters gets a little overwhelming in the beginning, the whole book comes together in such a masterful way. The ideas in this book are chilling and once again show the evil side of humanity. The author also does an excellent job of describing the gory details, without going too far or leaving too much to the imagination.

Wow!

A real page turning gruesome thriller! Loved it.

Holy smokes!

This book was so good, I could not put it down. If you liked the Jonathan Mayberry trilogy(which I highly reccommend) you will enjoy this book. The whole time I just kept putting mysellf in this book and thinking with the townspeople /what the heck is happening? Be afraid. No hobgoblins, just pure scary enjoyment.

LOVE IT

Ive been having a rather difficult time trying to find a good book but this one was a deffinate page turnner, the only problem is now i have to find another this good

Awesome!

I loved this book. At first glance I thought this book was a little to "sci-fi" for me, but it was such a fast-moving, and interesting book that I really didn't have a chance to even think about it once I began reading it! This is one of the best thrillers I have read in a while! The characters are very well-developed, so you feel for them very quickly. Caution: This one will keep you up reading all night so don't begin reading if you need to wake up early :) Happy Reading!