The New York Times Book Review - Terrence Rafferty
…a kind of blasphemous version of Paradise Lost, otherworldly history repeating itself as gory farce…Barker fills this large canvas with an impressive amount of action and infernal spectacle, and recaptures…some of the rollicking, berserk quality that made his early stories so distinctive.
Publishers Weekly
03/23/2015
Harry D’Amour, the psychically sensitive detective from Barker’s Books of Blood, faces off with Pinhead, the sadistic Cenobite star of the Hellraiser series, in this gory battle royal that takes the reader literally to hell and back. Following a blood-spattered prologue that sets the tone for the rest of the novel, Pinhead—here portrayed as a demon residing in hell—lures D’Amour and his entourage of mortal sidekicks to the infernal realm to serve as “witness” to what the demon calls “my gospels”: a succession of gruesome atrocities whose purpose is revealed in the tale’s outrageous climax. Barker’s depiction of hell is Dantesque in scope and scale, and his descriptions of its architecture and denizens form an awesomely creative display of imagination. The visceral horrors that clot nearly every page of this novel are not for the squeamish, but the reader who stomachs them to the end will be impressed by the audacity of the author’s ambitions. (May)
From the Publisher
I think Clive Barker is so good that I am literally tongue-tied. He makes the rest of us look like we've been asleep for the past ten years.” —Stephen King
“A powerful and fascinating writer with a brilliant imagination… an outstanding storyteller” —JG Ballard
“To call Clive Barker a 'horror novelist' would be like calling the Beatles a 'garage band'… He is the great imaginer of our time. He knows not only our greatest fears, but also what delights us, what turns us on, and what is truly holy in the world. Haunting, bizarre, beautiful.” —Quentin Tarantino
Library Journal
04/15/2015
Two characters from Barker's early work—former cop Harry D'Amour from his novel Everville and Pinhead, the demonic Cenobite from the Hellraiser films and Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart—face off in a blood-soaked return to the author's horror roots. Supernatural investigator Harry goes after Pinhead when the creature kidnaps his friend Norma and takes her to hell. Pinhead desires a witness to his plans to destroy his own order and confront Lucifer himself. VERDICT Not for the squeamish, this novel will best appeal to fans of Hellraiser, with callbacks to other films in the series and the book that inspired it. It's enormously violent, both with straight-up gore and scenes of fairly extreme sexual depravity, but fans have been waiting for the return of these characters for years. [See Prepub Alert, 11/24/14.]
AUGUST 2015 - AudioFile
Master of horror Clive Barker strikes again with more stories of the battle between good and evil featuring detective Harry D'Amour and his nemesis, Pinhead, the priest of hell. John Lee’s performance will chill listeners to their marrow as he narrates in emotionless tones. Lee’s sonorous voice is perfect for the bloodcurdling magicians, demons, and supernatural creatures who hunt Harry and his friends. Lee breathes life into each character with different accents and varied interpretations. This collection of tales of the Hellraiser series is for listeners with strong hearts and a love of the horror story. Crude language is interspersed with graphic descriptions of torture and death. Listen with the lights on. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2015-03-04
Horror master Barker (Absolute Midnight, 2011, etc.) brings down the lights on two of his most enduring creations: the Cenobite hell priest Pinhead and private eye Harry D'Amour. This long-awaited final chapter about characters that inspired the films of the Hellraiser series and Lord of Illusions may or may not satisfy the intense fan anticipation, but it's still a hell of a spectacle. The novel opens as a group of magicians have resurrected one of their comrades from the dead. When Pinhead arrives to kill him again, he warns, "You are the last. After you, there'll be no more games. Only war." The survivors are massacred (except for one who becomes Pinhead's slave), complete with gleefully gory descriptions of corporeal punishment. Meanwhile, Harry D'Amour is in New Orleans at the request of his blind friend, Norma Paine, who can speak to ghosts. While covering up a sex den for one of Norma's deceased clients, Harry discovers a Lament Configuration—those would be the creepy puzzle boxes you might remember from Hellraiser or Barker's novella The Hellbound Heart (1986). This attracts Pinhead, who has now been banished from his order. Pinhead declares that Harry must bear witness to his "sublime labor" and write in his gospels of all the carnage to follow. To trigger Harry's role in his final play, Pinhead kidnaps Norma and drags her to hell, forcing Harry and three friends to follow the demon into the breach. Once in the inferno, the ragtag band must navigate monsters, deadly fog, and the scorched landscape to follow their quarry to his final conflagration. This is graphic horror on a gargantuan scale but with some great character beats, too. When Harry growls, "This is between me and Pinfuck," it's a fist-in-the-air moment for Barker's patient and passionate fans. Perhaps not the best jumping-on point into Barker's twisted universe, but a fun, gory roller-coaster ride for horror fans and a worthy ending for an iconic villain.
