Effigies - William K. Wells

[nightreader]

Effigies by William K. Wells (Granada 1981)

Cracking start to this book. Nicole Bannister unwraps a small box delivered to her in the mail, inside is a child's finger. Chief of Police Frank Liscomb begins his investigations, believing the owner of the finger to be dead, his priority to find the body. The event sends ripples through peaceful Broadmoor in the Holland Township, USA. Liscomb is baffled when no body turns up and no child is reported missing.

Suspicion soon falls on the former hippy community near the town. There are rumours that they perform Satanic rites involving drugs and sex orgies. There is also the possibility of an involvement with Charles Manson's Family. One Freddie Loftus stands out as a nasty piece of work, secretive and violent, probably insane, definitely dangerous.

Round about this time the Bannisters daughter loses her harmless imaginary friend, Elsie. The voice replacing Elsie belongs to Elvida, who is not like Elsie at all.

Then the severed finger mummifies overnight, and at Nicole's birthday party another package is delivered, this one containing the rest of the child's hand, sans finger. They obviously match - the hand is dry, wrinkled and hard...

There's a seance held by some of the neighbours of the Bannisters, with devastating consequences, loss of life and general mayhem. Liscomb has so far scorned the speculation of the Devil being present but he too soon starts to wonder.

Tension mounts in Broadmoor, the temperature rises in a freak heatwave and a stranger with a shrivelled and mis-shapen ear calmly takes pictures of the townspeople, the accidents begin to occur and before long the death toll rises...

This was a surprise - it was one of those books that I didn't expect a great deal from, it's been sat on the shelf for a while, it's got quite a poor cover (always a turn off for me), it's quite hefty at 398 pages...so I don't know exactly why I started it, but I'm so glad I did. It was great, never a dull moment from start to finish (quite an achievement for a long novel). Never heard of this writer before (tried Googling him but didn't come up with much, also nothing on 'Fantastic Fiction either).

Well worth a look if you see this lurking around the charity shop

[swampslimer]

We had this kicking around at home years ago, it must have been lost in a move, so I never got the chance to read it.

I'll definitely snap it up if I see it in any second-hand places.

[williemeikle]

I thought I was the only person to have read this

I've been asking other fans for years about it, and nobody else had heard of it

The seance scene is particulary well done, and it's surprisingly literate given the crap cover ...

Willie

[Calenture]

I didn't get so much out of this one as Nightreader or Willie. I remember bypassing it when I first saw it, then regretting having done that when an art student friend said she'd "loved it, because it was so weird."

When I found it again and read it, this was what I wrote - of course, my tastes have changed a lot.

Nicole Bannister receives an unwelcome parcel through the post. It contains a child's severed finger. No children have been reported missing, and the question is raised whether the mutilated child is actually dead. In the meantime, by way of local colour, we are given extracts from a satanist's diary, and introduced to the inevitable slew of alcoholic or oversexed locals. Unfortunately the characters are so lacking in depth, and the book so lacking in any convincing detail, that although it's easy enough to read, the book is instantly forgettable...and forgotten.

[swampslimer]

An update to my post of April the 2nd - I managed to pick this up in a second-hand place the other day, and I've just finished reading it. It wasn't bad, although certainly different to what I was expecting and the first half was fairly subtle. The "Journal of a Satanist" parts were extremely well done though.

All in all, decent, but I'm in no hurry to read it again.

[andydecker]

William K. Wells - Effigies (Dell, 1980, 442 pages, this edition Granada, 1981, 398 pages)

Cover found on the net. Thanks to the original scanner.