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A plane lands in New York with most of its passengers and crew dead. As the FBI and CDC investigate the possible causes for the tragedy, something begins to happen to the few survivors. And that something is spreading like a virus.
I am not easily frightened by fiction. In spite of being a lifelong fan of the genre, I can count on my fingers the number of times I've been spooked by a book or film. But I have to say that delToro and Hogan have managed to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up with "The Strain." They seem to have an unerring instinct for the unsettling, the sinister and the downright creepy. Their writing is also informed by what has gone before in the horror genre -- the similarity between the dead airplane (even the electronic and mechanical processes failed utterly) with its grisly cargo of corpses, and the dead ship which brings Dracula to England is not an accident. They write with an awareness of what will get under our skin, what will move us to turn on the lights and lock the doors.
But the horrors here are not all supernatural. As in "Pan's Labyrinth" the Nazis play a supporting role, and the combination of real world horror and unreal is a stomach-knotting one. Real horror exists on many levels, inside our hearts as well as our minds.
I also have to say that while I find that many narratives need time to develop before they catch my interest, Hogan and del Toro caught me right from the first page. It's a compelling, well-written, nail-biting book that may well send you running for the locks and light switches. Highly recommended.
I am not easily frightened by fiction. In spite of being a lifelong fan of the genre, I can count on my fingers the number of times I've been spooked by a book or film. But I have to say that delToro and Hogan have managed to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up with "The Strain." They seem to have an unerring instinct for the unsettling, the sinister and the downright creepy. Their writing is also informed by what has gone before in the horror genre -- the similarity between the dead airplane (even the electronic and mechanical processes failed utterly) with its grisly cargo of corpses, and the dead ship which brings Dracula to England is not an accident. They write with an awareness of what will get under our skin, what will move us to turn on the lights and lock the doors.
But the horrors here are not all supernatural. As in "Pan's Labyrinth" the Nazis play a supporting role, and the combination of real world horror and unreal is a stomach-knotting one. Real horror exists on many levels, inside our hearts as well as our minds.
I also have to say that while I find that many narratives need time to develop before they catch my interest, Hogan and del Toro caught me right from the first page. It's a compelling, well-written, nail-biting book that may well send you running for the locks and light switches. Highly recommended.
