copyright 2011 by Ron Adams
In his new collection of short stories, “A Demon’s Dozen”, Kevin E. Lake deftly crafts a story within the stories as a down-on-his-luck writer tries to outwit the Devil himself with his tales of ghosts, creatures, and evil. As he has with his previous works, “Serial Street” and “From the Graves of Babes”, Lake proves himself poised to take his place among some of the very best in the horror genre.
When Damon, a talent agent from hell, finds author Truman Jackson drowning his sorrows in a dive/strip club, lamenting the repeated rejection of his collection of twelve short stories. The beautiful Kiki, the club’s featured dancer and a client of Damon’s, can’t even provide distraction from Truman’s despair. He finally admits to Damon he would be willing to do anything to become the successful writer he knows he can be. With that, Damon agrees to read the manuscript, and offers Kiki’s services to Truman while he reads.
The stories themselves are highly entertaining, and ratchet up in intensity as Damon progresses through the manuscript. There are tales of ghosts, both friendly and not; creatures of myth and mystery, and tales of evil and revenge. Fans of Lake’s are in for a treat, as he takes them back to the Richwood, West Virginia, the setting for his best selling novel, “From the Graves of Babes.”
Filled with twists and turns, monsters and demons, Kevin Lake has shown himself to be skilled and talented storyteller, and has given me one of my most enjoyable reads of the summer.
Please join me later this week for an interview with author Kevin E. Lake on Friday 9/30/2001.
Ron, this sounds great. I admire Mr. Lake's ability to write short stories - I am terrible at it! Whatever I write comes out in 85,000 words!
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