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4.0étoiles sur 5
Laws has a great imagination, Déc 24 2003
It is Christmas Eve, and all of the businesses housed in the fourteen story Fernley House are gearing up for an alcohol soaked series of office parties the participants will not soon forget. On the third floor, an architectural firm pours down drinks with reckless abandon. One of the junior partners in the firm decides after a few drinks that he must marry the senior secretary. The fourth floor shindig occurs in an accounting firm, with the bean counters dancing to Bruce Springsteen while somebody spikes the punch with vodka. The employees at Magnus Shipping, Inc., on the fourteenth floor, dance wildly to the sounds wafting up from the other parties, although they would have had their own music if one of the office girls had remembered to bring a tape player. Vincent Saville, one of the employees in the firm, stays back and silently clucks his tongue at the unfolding shenanigans. He feels that upper management should not condone such earthy fraternizing amongst the rabble, but keeps his thoughts to himself lest it should harm his career. Moving amidst all of this tumultuous cheer is the building maintenance man, Alec Beaton, a retired tar with a bad attitude towards the building's inebriated tenants. Not one of them offered Alec a drink, let alone a tip for keeping the building open and the boilers heated up for the parties. Grousing in the basement, Beaton casts aspersions on the jolly souls on the floors above. Outside, a massive storm full of lightening, sleet, and snow lashes the building and the surrounding area.Things take a turn south when an eardrum shattering series of clangs assails Beaton's senses. Nearly knocked senseless by this mysterious event, the janitor suspects the boilers are about to blow and heads up to warn the people still in the building. Oddly, he discovers everyone has suddenly disappeared, although music still plays, lights still blaze, and drinks still sit on tables. It looks as though everyone except Beaton just melted away into the atmosphere, and in way, that is exactly what happened. Deeply disturbed, Alec phones the police and sets into motion what will soon become a massive investigation into what appears to be a supernatural event of tremendous proportions. Over eighty people suddenly vanished without a trace and the authorities want to know why. They do eventually discover what goes on in the deep recesses of Fernley House, although the truth is enough to send the hardiest souls fleeing from the building in terror. Some will stay, of course, to make a stand against the evil fast enveloping Fernley House. Foremost of these brave souls is Detective Jack Cardiff. A veteran cop wrenched away from his desk and the memories of his deceased wife and child on a miserable Christmas Eve, Cardiff soon experiences some of the same eerie events Beaton described on the phone. Moreover, he and several of his officers discover a severed hand on one of the upper office floors, a hand neatly severed at the wrist with no signs of violence to explain its presence. When some ominous government agents led by a man named Rohmer show up, Cardiff and his fellow officers begin hearing enigmatic references to darkfalls, returners, and events that explain such supernatural events as the Bermuda Triangle, hauntings, and mysterious disappearances. It seems that the powerful storm raging away outside has a lot to do with what is going on at Fernley House. I give British author Stephen Laws high marks for coming up with an enormously imaginative idea in "Darkfall." Originally written in 1992 but only hitting our shores within the last year, this book does a great job marrying eerie atmosphere with gory violence and lumbering beasts. Fernley House quickly becomes a closed, claustrophobic trap as Cardiff, a local thief named Devlin, a returner (read and understand), and the government agents move through the building in search of a way to escape the emerging horrors brought into existence by the storm. And what horrors this building births! What starts out as a simple tale of disappearing people turns into an expansive exposition on the unknown qualities of electricity, the pursuit of spiritual power, and the discovery of hidden realms beyond the knowledge of mankind that change those poor souls who experience them in decidedly unpleasant ways. Toss in a splash of Zoroastrianism and you have the essence of "Darkfall." Laws ably puts it all together in a way that, by the time you reach the conclusion of the book, you can look back and see you have traveled quite a distance from page one. "Darkfall" hits a few road bumps along the way. Jack Cardiff and Agent Rohmer are about the only characters Laws bothers to develop in a significant way. The other police officers, Jimmy Devlin, and a few of the government agents who really know what is going on are mere cardboard cutouts who serve as cannon fodder for the monstrosities pouring out of the building or as actors who explain the plot to the reader. I found the burgeoning romantic connection between Devlin and the returner contrived and not at all compelling. I guess a romance is an easy plot device to fall back upon, even in a supernatural horror story, but "Darkfall" would have worked just as well without it. Despite these minor difficulties--including some iffy scientific theories about electricity--Laws's book is a great read that moves with mach speed from beginning to end. If you enjoy highly imaginative horror, "Darkfall" should definitely provide you with a few hours of entertainment.
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