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Jul. 23rd, 2019 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsPossibly I should have suspected from the title Prince of Darkness that this particular Barbara Michaels gothic was going to be a little more wild than usual, but, in my defense, ALL Barbara Michaelses have titles like Witch and Into the Darkness and quite often they're just about, like, coming into your own as proprietor of a small jewelry business!
NOT PRINCE OF DARKNESS.
The first half of the book focuses on Our Hero, Shady Peter Stewart, a British ex-con who has lied his way into a small American town for the purpose of revenge gaslighting local heiress/folklore scholar Katherine More into a nervous breakdown over her suspiciously dead ex-boyfriend.
...except when Peter gets there he finds that someone ELSE has gotten in AHEAD of him and is ALREADY attempting to gaslight Katherine More into a nervous breakdown??
Also, all the white people in town are super racist and appear to be part of a creepy Satanist cult.
Not one to be easily discouraged when he's got a plan in mind, Peter gamely spends a hundred and fifty pages trying to simultaneously complete his own Gaslight Katherine More plan while also catching and exposing whoever ELSE is attempting to Gaslight Katherine More. There's probably logic in there somewhere.
Meanwhile, he halfheartedly romances Katherine's beautiful blonde cousin, for scheming purposes, and much less halfheartedly attempts to befriend the town's most Racist Cultist's Dreamy Chauffeur, Hilary Jackson, an incredibly handsome six-foot-tall young black man with "a profile like that of the Apollo on Olympia" that Peter CANNOT stop going on about.
At one point, Hilary catches Peter breaking into the stables, knocks him over, captures his wrists, and sits on him and Peter's literally like "hey you're sitting on my diaphragm, mind shifting positions? >:D"
And then they have a pleasant evening of consensual grappling in the forest.
HILARY: I never spent such a crazy night. I catch you trying to steal a horse, and ten minutes later you're teaching me judo, or whatever it is. Crazy.
PETER: I impress some people that way.
Alas, when Peter, emboldened by this bonding experience, tries to recruit Hilary further into his plans, Hilary is like 'look, all I want is to survive this horrible racist cult leader boss long enough to pay off my college loans, I am not getting involved in your nonsense.'
Anyway, Peter fakes his own injury so he can move into Katherine's house, and then catches and exposes the local Horrible Ablist Stereotype (Peter's narration, backtracking wildly and unsuccessfully: "most disabled people are very nice! only this disabled stablehand is a walking nightmare who oozes menace!") impersonating a ghost, and then does his own job impersonating a ghost, and that's when things REALLY start going haywire.
So this is the point at which Katherine and Peter suddenly bang, after which Peter reveals his Dark Secret: Katherine's DEAD EX was his BABY BROTHER MARK, and he's spent the last year blaming her for MARK'S TRAGIC SUICIDE!
At which point Katherine's like, lol, no, Mark would NEVER kill himself, I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SHOT HIM, and collapses into a catatonic state!
When she wakes up, she decides to go for some nice stress-relieving archery ... and finds Peter! in a grove! shot with an arrow!!! by ..... THE RACIST SATANIST CULT.
Don't worry, though, he's mostly fine, and by this point he is also full-on in love with Katherine?
KATHERINE: ok but I shot your brother though? the brother whose death you were so mad about that you flew to America to try and gaslight me into nervous breakdown?? lest we forget???
PETER, SUDDENLY COMPLETELY COOL WITH IT NOW THAT IT'S MURDER AND NOT SUICIDE: If there was ever a born murderee, it was Mark.
(We also learn that the reason Peter was in jail was that he was a journalist! who was arrested for spying!!! when what he was actually doing was attempting to help a revolutionary pal in a communist bloc country get across the border!!! this comes out in two dropped lines of dialogue and is never mentioned again.)
Unfortunately, by the time they've gotten to this point of mutual understanding, the racist Satanist cult has kidnapped them BOTH and is going to sacrifice them to make the crops grow. I'm still not entirely clear on why they were trying to drive Katherine into a breakdown if they were just going to human sacrifice her anyway, but so it goes and here we are!
Anyway, all the townsfolk are like "we must wait for our leader," and the leader appears, and it's the Horrible Ablist Stereotype ...
... except then he rips off his Horrible Ablist disguise to reveal: IT WAS MARK ALL ALONG!
Yes, Born Murderee Mark faked his own murder for the purposes of becoming a Satanist cult leader, and now he is super ready to kill his brother and his ex in one fell sweep. But first the cultists have to stop for a picnic and orgy, which gives an opportunity for rescue to show up in the nick of time in the person of .... HILARY THE DREAMY CHAUFFEUR!
PETER: Hilary, what are you doing here? I thought you weren't going to get involved in my nonsense!
HILARY: Honestly I had no idea you were here, I'm here to rescue a completely unrelated baby that was kidnapped by the cult for human sacrifice purposes?
KATHERINE: oh shit that picnic basket DOES have a baby in it! can't believe neither of us noticed before now
PETER: oh, so Hilary, that's your baby?
HILARY: ...no? it's just a random baby? jeez, a baby doesn't have to be YOUR baby for you to want it to be not human sacrificed!
And so, with the power of teamwork, Peter, Katherine, and Hilary overthrow the cult, shoot Mark and all the other worst cult leaders, and rescue the baby! Huzzah!
(Why the cult needed to sacrifice a baby on top of the two perfectly good adult humans they'd already kidnapped is very unclear.)
And while I can't say that either Peter or Katherine have really COVERED themselves in glory over the course of this extremely bizarre adventure, I will give them credit for the fact that in the last couple scenes they coordinate to get their fingerprints all over the crime scene and confess to shooting every single cultist so that none of the blame falls on Hilary the Dreamy Chauffeur, who as a young black man in a wildly racist town of Satanist cultists would definitely not receive fair treatment or sentencing under the law if they can prove he was in any way involved.
Also I guess they're going to adopt the human sacrifice baby? So that's nice!
NOT PRINCE OF DARKNESS.
The first half of the book focuses on Our Hero, Shady Peter Stewart, a British ex-con who has lied his way into a small American town for the purpose of revenge gaslighting local heiress/folklore scholar Katherine More into a nervous breakdown over her suspiciously dead ex-boyfriend.
...except when Peter gets there he finds that someone ELSE has gotten in AHEAD of him and is ALREADY attempting to gaslight Katherine More into a nervous breakdown??
Also, all the white people in town are super racist and appear to be part of a creepy Satanist cult.
Not one to be easily discouraged when he's got a plan in mind, Peter gamely spends a hundred and fifty pages trying to simultaneously complete his own Gaslight Katherine More plan while also catching and exposing whoever ELSE is attempting to Gaslight Katherine More. There's probably logic in there somewhere.
Meanwhile, he halfheartedly romances Katherine's beautiful blonde cousin, for scheming purposes, and much less halfheartedly attempts to befriend the town's most Racist Cultist's Dreamy Chauffeur, Hilary Jackson, an incredibly handsome six-foot-tall young black man with "a profile like that of the Apollo on Olympia" that Peter CANNOT stop going on about.
At one point, Hilary catches Peter breaking into the stables, knocks him over, captures his wrists, and sits on him and Peter's literally like "hey you're sitting on my diaphragm, mind shifting positions? >:D"
And then they have a pleasant evening of consensual grappling in the forest.
HILARY: I never spent such a crazy night. I catch you trying to steal a horse, and ten minutes later you're teaching me judo, or whatever it is. Crazy.
PETER: I impress some people that way.
Alas, when Peter, emboldened by this bonding experience, tries to recruit Hilary further into his plans, Hilary is like 'look, all I want is to survive this horrible racist cult leader boss long enough to pay off my college loans, I am not getting involved in your nonsense.'
Anyway, Peter fakes his own injury so he can move into Katherine's house, and then catches and exposes the local Horrible Ablist Stereotype (Peter's narration, backtracking wildly and unsuccessfully: "most disabled people are very nice! only this disabled stablehand is a walking nightmare who oozes menace!") impersonating a ghost, and then does his own job impersonating a ghost, and that's when things REALLY start going haywire.
So this is the point at which Katherine and Peter suddenly bang, after which Peter reveals his Dark Secret: Katherine's DEAD EX was his BABY BROTHER MARK, and he's spent the last year blaming her for MARK'S TRAGIC SUICIDE!
At which point Katherine's like, lol, no, Mark would NEVER kill himself, I ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SHOT HIM, and collapses into a catatonic state!
When she wakes up, she decides to go for some nice stress-relieving archery ... and finds Peter! in a grove! shot with an arrow!!! by ..... THE RACIST SATANIST CULT.
Don't worry, though, he's mostly fine, and by this point he is also full-on in love with Katherine?
KATHERINE: ok but I shot your brother though? the brother whose death you were so mad about that you flew to America to try and gaslight me into nervous breakdown?? lest we forget???
PETER, SUDDENLY COMPLETELY COOL WITH IT NOW THAT IT'S MURDER AND NOT SUICIDE: If there was ever a born murderee, it was Mark.
(We also learn that the reason Peter was in jail was that he was a journalist! who was arrested for spying!!! when what he was actually doing was attempting to help a revolutionary pal in a communist bloc country get across the border!!! this comes out in two dropped lines of dialogue and is never mentioned again.)
Unfortunately, by the time they've gotten to this point of mutual understanding, the racist Satanist cult has kidnapped them BOTH and is going to sacrifice them to make the crops grow. I'm still not entirely clear on why they were trying to drive Katherine into a breakdown if they were just going to human sacrifice her anyway, but so it goes and here we are!
Anyway, all the townsfolk are like "we must wait for our leader," and the leader appears, and it's the Horrible Ablist Stereotype ...
... except then he rips off his Horrible Ablist disguise to reveal: IT WAS MARK ALL ALONG!
Yes, Born Murderee Mark faked his own murder for the purposes of becoming a Satanist cult leader, and now he is super ready to kill his brother and his ex in one fell sweep. But first the cultists have to stop for a picnic and orgy, which gives an opportunity for rescue to show up in the nick of time in the person of .... HILARY THE DREAMY CHAUFFEUR!
PETER: Hilary, what are you doing here? I thought you weren't going to get involved in my nonsense!
HILARY: Honestly I had no idea you were here, I'm here to rescue a completely unrelated baby that was kidnapped by the cult for human sacrifice purposes?
KATHERINE: oh shit that picnic basket DOES have a baby in it! can't believe neither of us noticed before now
PETER: oh, so Hilary, that's your baby?
HILARY: ...no? it's just a random baby? jeez, a baby doesn't have to be YOUR baby for you to want it to be not human sacrificed!
And so, with the power of teamwork, Peter, Katherine, and Hilary overthrow the cult, shoot Mark and all the other worst cult leaders, and rescue the baby! Huzzah!
(Why the cult needed to sacrifice a baby on top of the two perfectly good adult humans they'd already kidnapped is very unclear.)
And while I can't say that either Peter or Katherine have really COVERED themselves in glory over the course of this extremely bizarre adventure, I will give them credit for the fact that in the last couple scenes they coordinate to get their fingerprints all over the crime scene and confess to shooting every single cultist so that none of the blame falls on Hilary the Dreamy Chauffeur, who as a young black man in a wildly racist town of Satanist cultists would definitely not receive fair treatment or sentencing under the law if they can prove he was in any way involved.
Also I guess they're going to adopt the human sacrifice baby? So that's nice!
no subject
Date: 2019-07-24 04:17 am (UTC)WOW
....just....WOW
Also yay for Hilary!
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Date: 2019-07-24 04:54 am (UTC)Normally I root for an OT3 under these circumstances, but I suspect Dreamy Hilary may do well moving far, far away from Racist Satanist Town.
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Date: 2019-07-24 05:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-24 05:28 am (UTC)But I'm glad Hilary survives the book okay and with a solid alibi! I hope he gets his college loans paid off and can go work for somebody better! (NOT HARD.)
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Date: 2019-07-24 08:01 am (UTC)Then I kept reading and wow, I have not encountered this one AT ALL. Wow.
Went and checked my bookshelf - I had The Dark on the Other Side with gaslighting, black magic and werewolves. Barbara Michaels, wheee!
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Date: 2019-07-24 09:34 am (UTC)Amazing xD
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Date: 2019-07-24 09:59 am (UTC)I'm reminded of a Making Light blog post about plot in which Teresa Nielsen Hayden reassured aspiring authors not to worry about cramming too much incident or plot twist into one book, saying something like "We'll tell you if it's too exciting."
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Date: 2019-07-24 12:53 pm (UTC)This all sounds RIDONKULOUS but this particular part is PEAK LUDICROUSNESS and I love it. (Especially given that Peter's response is "Oh, we're totally cool now," like WHAT? How is murder BETTER than driving him to suicide?)
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Date: 2019-07-24 12:57 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-07-24 03:18 pm (UTC)I enjoyed Barbara Michaels' Houses of Stone (someone recommended it to me after I bemoaned the fact that there aren't more mysteries about manuscripts.) This review suggests to me that perhaps I should make more forays into her work.
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Date: 2019-07-24 03:23 pm (UTC)I kinda love Barbara Michaels a lot, but some of her books, I just have to wonder if it's her, or it's just because it's 'muricans.
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Date: 2019-07-24 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-24 04:01 pm (UTC)...and then there's my actual favorite, Someone in the House, in which a group of vacationers attempt to solve the Mystery of Kevin's Enthusiastic Invisible Sex.
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Date: 2019-07-24 04:03 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-07-24 06:45 pm (UTC)That sounds like a WILD RIDE.
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Date: 2019-07-24 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2019-07-25 09:04 pm (UTC)Hopefully not in a "Last night I dreamed of Manderly again" kind of way but even that would be better than current male chauvinist boyfriend.
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Date: 2019-07-25 10:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-25 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-26 02:44 am (UTC)Step 1: load the gun with blanks
Step 2: wave the gun around so that she goes to grapple with him for it, and then arrange matters so that she thinks she shot it
Step 3: fall over and play dead
Step 4: get a Trusted Cult Colleague to appear in a timely fashion to be like 'oh no! you shot him! don't worry! I'll take care of everything so NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW!'
Step 5: Trusted Cult Colleague spreads the story of suicide
Step 6: profit .....?
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Date: 2019-12-04 01:00 am (UTC)This is AMAZING.
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Date: 2019-12-04 01:42 am (UTC)