Moonlight

by: Keith Knapp

Published by: Outskirts Press

Reviewed by C. L. Rossman

Moonlight is the tale of a horror which engulfs an entire town—and perhaps the nation. Jennifer Adams, youthful mayor of the Chicago suburb of Westmont, wakes one steamy summer day to find that the electricity in the city has gone out. And not only in things like clocks and electric lighting, but everywhere, in everything: home telephones and cells, automobiles, buses and trucks and trains—a total power failure.

While diligent investigation by the city’s workers fails to turn up a cause, other, more insidious things begin to overtake the townspeople. A voice in their heads urges them to evil deeds; a mysterious Man in a Dark Coat turns dead people into unstoppable zombies, and live humans into criminals. “No more room,” they mutter—“no more room”—in hell.

Only a small group of individuals survives the change to form a resistance, and they have to escape from where they have been trapped in order to confront the Man in the Dark Coat. They have to stop him and send him back to hell, but it will take a supreme sacrifice to do so. The author builds interest by making even some of the good guys susceptible to evil influence.

This novel is better written than many which come from presses for hire. It has a decent plot and recognizable characters, and gradually builds to its full horror potential. It introduces people we can care about, and mourn when they are overtaken. The title doesn’t quite catch the essence of what is going on here, but it does catch the reader’s eye. And you will get a hearty dose of horror if you read it.

Armchair Interviews says: It will be interesting to see how this writer develops in the future.