Horns

January 25, 2010
In bestseller Hill’s compulsively readable supernatural thriller, his second after Heart-Shaped Box
, dissolute Ignatius Perrish wakes up one morning to find a pair of satanic horns sprouting from his forehead. To the residents of Gideon, N.H., this grotesque disfigurement only confirms their suspicions that Ig raped and murdered his girlfriend, Merrin Williams, a crime for which he was held but soon released for lack of evidence. Ig is also now privy to the deepest, and often darkest, private thoughts of anyone he touches. Once Ig discovers through this uncanny sensitivity the true killer’s identity, he schemes to reveal the culprit’s guilt through natural means. Toggling between past and present, and incidents that range from the supernaturally surreal to the brutally realistic, Hill spins a story that’s both morbidly amusing and emotionally resonant. The explanations for Ig’s weird travails won’t satisfy every reader, but few will dispute that Hill has negotiated the sophomore slump. 6-city author tour.

Starred review from February 1, 2010
Ignatius Perrish led a charmed life as the popular son of a wealthy and talented family and the storybook lover of the perfect Merrin Williams. Then, after high school, it all went wrong. Merrin was raped and murdered, her head bashed in, and everyone assumed Ig was the killer, even after he was exonerated. A year after Merrin's death, following a barely remembered night of debauchery, Ig awakens with a pair of three-inch horns growing from his forehead. Along with these come abilities that shock and disgust him but also bring him closer to finding Merrin's real killer. As the plot builds through flashbacks and clever exposition, Ig's true nature reveals itself, and the reader is left questioning the traditional border between good and evil. VERDICT The promising short-story writer of "20th Century Ghosts" didn't quite reach the mark with his debut novel, "Heart-Shaped Box", but with his sophomore effort, Hill has written a novel that is all his. Highly recommended, particularly for fans of Clive Barker and Christopher Moore. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 10/15/09; also available in ebook and HarperLuxe large-print editions.]Karl G. Siewert, MLIS, Tulsa City-Cty. Lib.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2009
One hangover-headache morning, Ig Perrish gropes his forehead and discovers a pair of knobby, pointed protuberances. As he proceeds to stumble through the day, person after person he encounters, including the nurse and doctor he consults about the horns, tell him things about their desires and intentions that they should keep to themselves, and whenever he touches someone, he instantly knows their darkest secrets. Most disconcerting, he finds out that virtually everyone thinks that, lack of evidence notwithstanding, he really did sexually assault and murder his lover since high school, Merrin Williams, almost exactly a year ago. Only his brother, Terry, a TV talk-show star, doesnt, but that, Ig learns through his special powers, is because Terry knows Merrin was killed by someone near and dear to her and Ig both. Ig determines on making the culprit die as painfully as Merrin died. Hills a terrific descriptive writer, and realistic dialogue comes easily to him, but those skills dont help this diffuse revenge caper move as crisply as it ought to, and they dont compensate for the cookie-cutter sameness of its characters. Except for Ig and the Merrin, everyone in Igs little world is a covert creep seething with mean spirits; although hes becoming steadily more demonic, Ig himself is the nicest guy around. Worst, the big-showdown climax comes off as splatter-movie farcical after the longueurs of the preceding 300-plus pages.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)