Influenza is a mainstream type of monster and has lately eschewed the supernatural. The flu invades bodies and kills the very young, the very old, the infirm, (and sometimes the perfectly healthy), and spends a lot of time in the limelight. Influenza drinks a lot of margaritas while sitting around the pool and has forgotten all its old friends. In fact, it’s safe to say that the flu threw out its little black book long ago. Not that I’m harboring any grudges. Of course there is competition, like flesh-eating bacteria and deadly e-coli, but really when you catch the flu, it’s on top of the world.
Have you ever wondered if the flu does other things than just make you feel bad? What if it could change your personality? What if it could take control of your body?
In Blood Water, a supernatural horror thriller aimed at the young adult set, Dean Vincent Carter asks some of these questions and comes up with horrifying answers. A scientist discovers a leech-like creature in a cave pool. When introduced to other animals, it enters their bodies and takes over, making them do horrible things. It also slowly brings about their deaths in a way that resembles the horrifying ends of people who die of the flu (breaking out in sores, suffering from massive infections that lay waste to the internal organs, and eventually ending in what is known by the medical community as “bleeding out”). Did I mention that it is also homicidal? And as these things tend to go in supernatural horror thrillers, the creature escapes and wreaks havoc in a school during a flood.
I think Carter has tapped into our collective terror about the flu and given it a supernatural twist. Take two parts Hot Zone, one part 28 Weeks Later, and mix with a hearty dose of best-selling horror thriller author Dean R. Koontz, and you’ll get a book like Blood Water.
My one nagging disappointment is that I think the author didn’t use the flood situation to its fullest. Here you have a deadly black leech-like creature that can swim, and you have a school full of unsuspecting students in knee-deep water, and to me that sounds like some fertile ground for a nightmare. Instead the monster spends most of its time jumping from host to host. Don’t get me wrong — that was plenty scary — but I think that would have been interesting.
The book is suspenseful, fast moving, well-written, and in places, quite terrifying. I mentioned in my Weekly Geeks introduction of this book that it was gory, and several people had reactions to that. Jackie at Farm Lane Books wondered if it had a good story-line as opposed to being all about the gore. (Yes. Good story-line. Not so much gore.) anothercookiecrumbles wondered if this book would be a good introduction to the genre. (Yes. If you’re curious about supernatural horror thrillers for young adults, this would be a great book.) Jacqueline C. wondered about Dean R. Koontz. (In a nutshell, he wrote really terrifying thrillers which sometimes had a lightly supernatural element but which usually could happen in real life. My favorite is Phantoms, which is a book about a town whose population is mysteriously disappearing in a terrifying manner.) Jackie at Literary Escapism worried (as many parents probably do) about the gore in this book and exposing her young adult kids to it. To answer her question: although it’s pretty graphic and nasty, the gore in the book is not gratuitous and there isn’t tons of it. I personally was reading far worse at a young age and look how I turned out. Ah HA! HAHAHAHAHA!
Creepy Factor: 4 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 0 out of 5 (darn it.)
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 1 out of 5
Final result: Although I think most adults would find the broth a bit thin, I have to recommend Blood Water for young adult readers. Other reviewers have mentioned that in a time of incompetent vampire teenagers, geeky magician teenagers, and obnoxious time-traveling teenagers, this fast-paced thriller stands out from the pack.
Blood Water by Dean Vincent Carter – Corgi Books – 2009
Thanks to the folks at Random House for sending me a copy of this book! (See my disclosure policy.) Thanks to you for reading another one of my book reviews. Hopefully next time I review a nice juicy horror novel with loads of Weird Erotic Tension. I’m working on it! See you next time!
P.S. This review was part of a Weekly Geeks assignment.
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