The Summoning God (Anasazi Mysteries #2) by Kathleen O'Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear
Step back into the year A.D. 1263...and the secret lair of a killer. He walks the ruins of a dying civilization, stalking the weak, the chosen, stalking them into terror.
When War Chief Browser stumbles into a subterranean ceremonial chamber filled with headless bodies, he know it is just the beginning. The darkness that has haunted him for most of his life has returned. A murderer lurks in the shadows around Browser's village, taking people one at a time. Browser turns for help to a crazy tribal elder who has solved many crimes before. Browser is certain old Stone Ghost knows the killer, but the elder is telling no one. As Browser frantically works to find the fiend, the murderer watched from closer than he would ever dream...
Only a few heartbeats ahead in geological time, archaeologist, William "Dusty" Stewart, finds himself excavating a mass grave in new Mexico filled with the burned bodies of children. As the number of bodies begins to mount, he is forced to call upon the skills of his arch-nemesis: world-reknowned Canadian physical anthropologist, Dr. Maureen Cole. What Dusty and Maureen discover about the killer's methods is almost too horrible to believe.
From the national award-winning archaeologist and international bestselling author of The Vistant comes a novel of unforgettable terror about mass murder in America eight hundred years ago…
The novel is basically an enjoyable read, though the book could really have been shortened. Especially in the parts set in the present, like the first book there’s a lot of unnecessary information. It tends to make the book drag so that it wasn’t until the last third, when things are finally getting resolved, that I found my interest really peak.
I liked the characters from the past, especially Catkin, who seems to be the most level-headed. The characters in the present are harder to like, especially Dusty. He’s a bit shallow, as are the members of his team. The really redeeming character is his mentor, Dean, who doesn’t have a huge roll this time around. Truthfully, though, the book would probably have worked better with this part removed altogether.
But, yet again, there are things left unresolved. I assume they’ll be explained in the third book. I’m of two minds about reading it, though. It’s as long as this one; a daunting undertaking that I’m not sure I want to attempt.
The book can only nominally considered horror, since there's only a touch of the supernatural. But, still, horror.
Mount TBR 2023 Book Links
Links are to more information regarding each book or author, not to the review.
1. Alexander's Tomb: The Two-Thousand Year Obsession to Find the Lost Conquerer by Nicholas J. Saunders
2. Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
3. Under the Empyrean Sky (Heartland Trilogy #1) by Chuck Wendig
4. Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
5. After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War by Gregory P. Downs
6. The Wolf's Hour (Michael Gallatin #1) by Robert R. McCammon
7. Bag of Bones by Stephen King
8. Substitute by Susi Holliday
9. Fairy Tale by Stephen King
10. Huxley: From Devil's Disciple To Evolution's High Priest
11. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
12. The History of Bees (Climate Quartet #1) by Maja Lunde, Diane Oatley (Translator)
13. The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley
14. The Hunter from the Woods (Michael Gallatin #2) by Robert McCammon
15. The Far Arena by Richard Ben Sapir
16. The Humans by Matt Haig
17. Craven Manor by Darcy Coates
18. The Alpha Female Wolf: The Fierce Legacy of Yellowstone's 06 by Rick McIntyre
19. The Last Town (Wayward Pines #3) by Blake Crouch
20. Faerie Tale by Raymond E. Feist
21. The Magpie Lord (Charm of Magpies 1) by K.J. Charles
22. 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised and Updated by Eric H. Cline
23. Wanderers (Wanderers #1) by Chuck Wendig
24. Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
25. A Dog's History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans by Laura Hobgood-Oster
26. Bethany's Sin by Robert McCammon
27. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
28. The Tea Party by Charles L. Grant
29. Seeker (Alex Benedict #3) by Jack McDevitt
30. Jizzle by John Wyndham
31. The Taking by Dean Koontz
32. Frozen in Time: An Epic Story of Survival and a Modern Quest for Lost Heroes of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff
33. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
34. Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O'Farrell
35. Only the Beautiful by Susan Meissner
36. The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
37. A Natural History of the Future: What the Laws of Biology Tell Us about the Destiny of the Human Species by Rob Dunn
38. Sparta: Rise of a Warrior Nation by Philip Matyszak
39. Wayward (Wanderers #2) by Chuck Wendig
40. The Summoning God (Anasazi Mysteries #2) by Kathleen O'Neal Gear, W. Michael Gear
Folk Horror
3. The Summoning God by Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear