Review by E.C.McMullen Jr.

BORN BAD by Barry Hoffman Cemetery Dance Publications $40.00 HC ISBN 1-881475-99-9 Cover Art: Harry O. Morris

Cemetery Dance has made its name through the publication of its fine line of Special and limited edition Horror books. Author and publisher Barry Hoffman has made his name through his company Gauntlet Press, which is renown for its fine line of Special and Limited edition Horror books. So what happens when Gauntlet Press auteur Barry Hoffman writes a book for Cemetery Dance?

Well . . . it ain't Horror.

But for those of you who come to feoamante.com for the Thriller (as can sometimes be found in the term Crime-Thriller) or for those of you who come here for the Mystery; you may find a very nice little read in this creepy tale.

Like a Columbo style mystery, we know from the very start who the murderer is. Shanicha Williams' Mother died during her birth. Even worse than being born an orphan, she was a crack baby to a corpse. Not the best way to start out in life. Growing up in orphanages and among foster families, Shanicha never acquires the basics of human goodness, i.e. love, compassion, remorse - but she does find her genius in manipulating people and orchestrating events, to the detriment and death of those around her. Shanicha was BORN BAD.

She is also highly intelligent, and has a natural brilliance in doing the most evil of things in the most legal of ways. All providing, of course, that no one ever discovers her secrets. Shanicha has terrible secrets, and for all of her evil, her own dark frightening fears.

Detective Ariel Dampier is the white skinned mulatto daughter of interracial parents, who among other things, cannot decide if she is really black or really white. Her very character finds itself at a terminal crossroads, neither black or white and wondering why it even matters. Her dark skinned ex-husband and fellow police officer, Lucius, works at Penn State University as a campus cop. There is an odd rash of suicides. Then a cryptic note sent to the police that almost, but not quite, confesses to the suicides, which means that they are actually murders.

The tone and pacing of Hoffman's story is standard Crime-detective fare. Like many crime novels, Dampier doesn't get along with her superior, Russ McGowan, who in addition to having a minor in racism and a major in sexism, is also an incompetent. This is the typical Rogue-Cop-As-Loner story and any fan of the dirty Harry movies and countless novels can settle right into the picture.

What elevates this story is Hoffman's fascinating character study of all the major and even minor players. Everyone has a say and, right or wrong, have their justifications; their strengths and weaknesses.

Far more than action, BORN BAD is a character driven story with lots of turns (more turns than twists), amazing depth, and a wonderful population. These are the kinds of characters you want to read about again and again.

Rogue Cop As Hero stories endure because people love to read them. They are a significant subgenre of Thrillers as lone vampires are a subgenre of Horror. I had small beefs with BORN BAD - in that some scenarios were a little too neat, and some of the characters, like Asha and Isaacs, are built-up only to be dropped out of the picture.

Just the same the story, characters, and plot are well thought out and executed. By the last half of the book I couldn't let it go, I had to finish the whole thing right then and there. BORN BAD rocks!

4 BookWyrms

This review copyright 2001 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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