Decimate

by Christopher Rice

Overview

A desperate family confronts the mysteries that lie between life and death in this soul-gripping novel of supernatural suspense by Amazon Charts and New York Times bestselling author Christopher Rice.

Claire Huntley and her brother, Poe, were on a midnight hike in Montana when the woods went wild. A blinding, devouring light and a rumbling pulse that blasted them off their feet left both kids with little memory of what happened. Their father insisted it was a violent extraterrestrial abduction; his wild obsession would tear their family apart in the wake of the trauma.

Fourteen years later, Claire, who’s battled anxiety attacks since that fateful hike, wants to heal her relationship with her brother, which has been damaged by his years of addiction. But only hours before their reunion, Poe’s crowded passenger plane plunges into the Colorado mountains. No one survives the fiery crash. In the midst of her grief, Claire accepts her estranged father’s request to join him in Montana, where he continues to investigate the paranormal force he believes altered his children down to their bones.

As they reunite, Claire’s anxiety attacks take on a new dimension. Is she experiencing hallucinations or visions? Is her brother’s presence in them a symptom of grief, or is she receiving messages from beyond life? The answers Claire and her father seek will take them on a breakneck journey deep into the Montana wilderness and the shadows of history, where they will unearth a secret force with terrifying implications for their family—and the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781542032766
Publisher:	Thomas & Mercer
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,031,869
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

A New York Times bestseller since his first publication at the age of twenty-two, Christopher Rice is the author of Bone Music (an Amazon Charts bestseller and the first novel in the Burning Girl series) and its sequels, Blood Echo and Blood Victory, as well as the Bram Stoker Award finalists The Heavens Rise and The Vines. His second novel, The Snow Garden, received a Lambda Literary Award. He is an executive producer on the television adaptations of The Vampire Chronicles and The Lives of the Mayfair Witches by Anne Rice; and he also collaborated with her on Ramses the Damned: The Passion of Cleopatra and Ramses the Damned: The Reign of Osiris, two sequels to her phenomenally popular novel The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned. Together with his best friend and producing partner—New York Times bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn—Christopher runs the production company Dinner Partners. Among other projects, they produce the podcast and video network TDPS, which you can find at www.TheDinnerPartyShow.com. As C. Travis Rice, Christopher writes tales of romance between men. Learn more about Christopher at www.christopherricebooks.com.

Editorial Reviews

03/14/2022

At the start of this gripping if uneven supernatural thriller from bestseller Rice (A Density of Souls), two children, 12-year-old Claire Huntley and her 10-year-old brother, Poe, are hiking in the wilds of Montana when they’re struck by a mysterious violent force that leaves them with little memory of what happened. Their father suspects they were the victims of an alien abduction. Fourteen years later, Claire, now a history teacher in the Pacific Northwest, is preparing to meet Poe, who’s been emotionally troubled since the incident, at the airport. Then she receives a psychic message from Poe shortly before his plane crashes. Meanwhile, Randy Drummond and a team of ex-military men are monitoring the Huntleys along with a strange phenomenon related to the afterlife. Claire and Randy—aided by the not-quite-dead souls of Poe and Randy’s lover—wind up going after a demented outcast who wants to take revenge on everyone who’s ever abused him. Sharp dialogue and vivid characters make up only in part for the clichéd revelation about what’s really going on and the cop-out conclusion. Rice has done better. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (May)

Publishers Weekly

An adventurous, provocative story…Rice puts a wicked spin on near-death experiences.” —Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2022-02-05
Rice puts a wicked spin on near-death experiences.

While camping with their father in Glacier National Park, Claire Huntley follows her younger brother, Poe, into the woods, where they’re attacked by an unknown force that changes their lives. The authorities say they’ve been attacked by a bear, but her father’s claim that it was aliens ruins his marriage and separates Claire, who stays with her mom, from Poe, who lives with his father. Years later, when Claire’s a teacher in California and Poe’s an artist and drug addict in New York, Poe’s plane crashes on a trip to visit his sister, and their mystical connection is dramatized when she feels his pain. Back at the crash site, Vernon Starnes, a deeply disturbed man who’s living in a nearby shack, investigates and discovers a seat covered in a blue shimmer that takes over his body, changing him into a powerful, dangerous killer. Thus begins a tale of coverups, government agents, private muscle, and a Nazi past hidden in Montana. Even in death Poe continues to communicate with Claire in different ways, calling her and Margot Hastings, their father’s ex-girlfriend, to travel to Montana to see him. There, they meet Randy Drummond and his friends, keepers of years’ worth of harrowing secrets that are slowly revealed as Claire and Poe work with them to contain a global threat.

An adventurous, provocative story that would have been enhanced by judicious pruning.

Kirkus Reviews