Prelude to theMassacre by Stan Miller is one dark, disturbing trip. The itinerary of
depravity featured within this novel are rape, murder, robbery, drug use, white
supremacy, prison bitches, kidnapping, assault, and genocide. With a list that
deep, there was little chance I wasn’t going to love this book. Indeed, it was
one of the best books I have read this year.
The long and short of
this book is it follows Lee, who is mistakenly released from prison years
early, as he tries to stay off the police’s radar while still satisfying his
darkest yearnings. He hooks up with his cousin Jeff, a disfigured war veteran
with dreams of racial and religious purity for the world, and they murder,
rape, and pillage their community. Both characters have psychotic impulses and
they feed off of each other. Their taste for crime intensifies as they progress
to murder and finally they begin to plan a genocide of the Jewish people who
attend a local church.
There is so much more
going on in this novel than what meets the eye. It has a timely feel to it
due to the fact it seems to feed off the resentment some groups have towards
other; a sentiment we have been witnessing in the US news as of late. I am
not sure if it’s a horror novel, a crime novel, or a warning about what many be
simmering just below in the society we all spend our time within on a daily
basis, but I do know that it's a prophesy on the incredible writing career
that Miller has in front of him. He has penned a novel that is timely and begs
to be read and dissected.
This is the type of
novel that you find you lose hours to while you read it and you rue the moment
you have completed it. This book is everything I look for in dark noir and Stan
Miller has my full attention. All Due Respect has published a book that fits
beautifully into their catalog of dark fiction. Very rarely do you find a debut
book that is a must-read, but you have one here. Grab a copy and enjoy.
Highly Recommended.
Reviewed by Derrick Horodyski.
