Dark of the Eye 
By Douglas Clegg
Subterranean Press $40.00
 

This fine Subterranean Press edition is a reissue of a novel that's a few years old, but don't let this stop you from delving into its dark sphere. 

Doug Clegg (GOAT DANCE, NAOMI, YOU COME WHEN I CALL YOU, THE INFINITE) turns in a sizzling performance in this thoroughly engaging cross-genre thriller. Shocking, horrifying, and twisted in just the right way, DARK OF THE EYE grabs you with its very first sentence: "He had never killed a child before."

From this chilling beginning, Clegg maneuvers a wildly disparate set of characters into and around a well-constructed plot that skillfully weaves threads of religion with those of truly weird science, exploring along the way the cruelty of man so often disguised as love.

Hope Stewart, eleven, has just lost an eye in a car accident. Now she can cure people's illnesses - or subject them to excruciating pain which kills their souls but inexplicably leaves their twitching, tortured bodies alive.

Kate Stewart kidnaps her daughter from the hospital to protect her from the clutches of Dr. Robert Stewart, whom she suspects of experimenting on their daughter. Kate and Hope's cross-country flight leads them to Empire, CA, where a horrifying destiny awaits. Meanwhile, government assassin Stephen Grace, himself a wonderfully dark creation, hunts the child, whose powers are only now awakening.