No Road Home by John Fram (2024)
What a twelve course meal this book serves up......
'No Road Home' operates on so many multiple levels, my head was spinning. There's grand Gothic horror, there's an intricate 'locked room' whodunit that's enough to a make a Dame Agatha book read like "Goodnight Moon'. And finally, there's a torrential rain storm hovering over the Versailles-sized mansion of the televangelist Wrignt family dynasty..........a poisonous Addams Family collection of grifters, lunatics and psychotic pederasts. The horrorshow Wrights are nothing but a litany of wrongs
Hurled into this cauldron is Toby Tucker, who unwisely entered into a marriage of convenience with one of the Wrights to assure a financially comfortable future for Luca, his sensitive queer little boy. After the murder of the family Patriarch, it doesn't take long for Toby to realize how much danger he's placed himself and Luca in. He's overwhelmed by the depths of the family's crimes and perversions and this hissing nest of vipers has ominous plans for Luca that Toby realizes will destroy the child.
If that isn't enough going on, somebody (human or other-worldly) . is using red paint to smear foul, threatening messages that promise bloody, Biblical revenge and retribution on the Wrights for their multitude of sins.
The rain keeps pounding as Toby and Luca try to desperately find their way out of both the labyrinth of the vast house itself and the tangled web of the family's schemes they're trapped in. And all the while, Luca's bonded with a.....well, let's just say someone who's pivotal to what's going on.....
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Quite a wild ride from beginning to end, with a climax that rivals Stephen King in finishing off things with a bizarre satisfying spectacle. I love how this book just went for it fully, throwing everything in one huge package. Definitely a 'Don't Miss for this year's thrillers.
5 stars (*****)
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