This one bursts out of the gate like a buzz saw headed straight for your gut. As we will see, that is mostly a good thing. Most readers seem to love or hate it, with few to be found on the fence. I thought the book made good fodder for a discussion of style and approach, so this review is also an exploration of fiction writing technique, at least in the horror-thriller nexus.

Afraid is the debut title for J.A. Konrath's alter ego, Jack Kilborn. Nice way to get his initials in there, the name of his other protagonist (Jack Daniels), and arguably the word Kill, plus the fact that he is "born" of JA's Jack books combined with more killing. Definitely deserving extra points for creating a pseudonym with a powerful totem.

Let's look at the plot first, since the book is plot-heavy. Then we'll touch on the controversy, much of which is fed by the author's tongue-in-cheek but very PR-wise advice that people should not read the book because it is too scary. J.A. Konrath knows his PR techniques and psychology, and utilizes both with unerring skill.

A helicopter crashes near Safe Haven, Wisconsin, a sleepy little up-north community surrounded by deep woods. The crash survivors are the townspeople's worst nightmare, incorrigible body-altered seasoned killers implanted with program chips and aimed like a weapon against, well, everyone. Their black uniforms recall the Waffen SS, but their name is "red-ops," and they are out to locate something that the good folks of Safe Haven don't really know they know about. These aren't just soldiers, they are killing machines without consciences, serial killers with credentials stamped by the government. (If this stuff doesn't already exist, let's hope no neo-con reads this novel and takes notes.) For a long time, we don't know what they want. Only that they are willing to do anything to get it. Willing and oh, so able.

Against this nearly unstoppable force is arrayed an arthritic, almost-retired sheriff, a heroic young firefighter or two, a single mom with enough trauma in her life to make her doubly determined to save her young son, the kid and his dog Woof, and a couple other incidental heroes, not all of whom get to see the end of the story. It's a sort of reverse Magnificent Seven, as the townspeople who aren't sheep-like manage to confound the trained, hopped-up-on-drugs-and-murder machine of the red-ops team.

The style is kept intentionally sparse, heavy on action and light on descriptions, though what's there tends to be scalpel-sharp. There is very little backstory for any character, excepting a few info dumps that don't halt the novel's forward progress all that much. They explain without cluttering, a technique easier to describe than to use effectively. One of their effects is to level the playing field and keep all characters expendable, which heightens the fear that some the reader has come to like will buy it. However, it's a risky deal because without that backstory we may not care as much about them, which seems to be the number two complaint of readers who didn't like the novel. The number one complaint has been the excessive violence, which is strange because the level of violence is really not as high as some think. People do die, but not generally in the excruciatingly described manner of most hardcore horror novels. There is a sort of Hitchcock-inspired bait and switch going on, where the occasional grim detail brings forth much more explicit imagery in the reader's mind than is found on the page.

In good Dean Koontz fashion, the animals tend toward the innocently heroic and (perhaps ironically, given the human body count) provide a couple of the few truly touching scenes—and we'll leave it at that. Plus, there is good use made of what one might term "Michael Slade-of-hand," which can also be found in the Konrath Jack Daniels books.

What about pace elevated to supreme status over characterization and description? As mentioned earlier, character details aren't missing, they're just short and sharp. The technique does not allow for greater caring about protagonists, but the result is that the few sensitive scenes are rendered more effective by contrast. Also, it's easier to watch expendable characters killed off without caring about them, which might otherwise be a hindrance. Gore is well-handled and kept to a minimum, though much more gore is implied, as much of the slaughter occurs off-stage. Perhaps it's just a case of being a jaded old horror reader, because various on-line reviews have indeed called the novel too gory, too sick, and just too much. Certain sections of William L. Shirer's immortal The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, for instance, in which the written word imparts details that turn hair white and render inert the worst Afraid has to offer, are surely much worse. Of course, the comparison is not quite apt, as Afraid is fiction and therefore cannot generate the impact of a Rise and Fall. But one would think that, knowing it's fiction would allow more latitude. With gory celluloid franchises, we remind ourselves, "It's only a movie." So why can't readers simply substitute the word novel for movie and get on with it? Be that as it may, it's possible that some people "just don't want to go there" even in their fiction, though then it seems difficult then to explain the popularity and attraction of all the various CSI and CSI-style TV franchises, along with the HBO-etc. autopsy programs, or even such fare as Dexter.

Afraid is a dum-dum bullet to the forehead, a whip-crack of a novel that effectively uses its array of technique weapons to cause not fear, but a highly desirable level of suspense. Who will live? Who will die? What is the McGuffin, anyway? From the helicopter crash to the climax, there are very few speed bumps and no chapter headings. Like The DaVinci Code, Afraid utilizes its pace to thwart analysis. There are shaky aspects to the plot, but Kilborn's calculated momentum carries the reader forward with hardly any respite. A gleeful over-the-top quality rules, the kind found in most B-movies — movies that are as often entertaining as not despite the oft-visible structural constructs. Here, even the place names have a role. Take Safe Haven. Get it? In Kilborn's hands, it's not a haven, and nobody is safe. That's called irony, and it may be a bit much—perhaps a small misstep in what is otherwise a very well-planned campaign of slick plotting, pacing, and even slicker execution (and executions, come to think of it). The willing reader will be enticed to participate, and they will be entertained by this excellent example of commercial fiction. Unwilling readers will find the toe-sucking and occasional casual brutality just too much right from the beginning. It'll be their loss.