From award-winning author Gary A. Braunbeck comes Prodigal Blues, his first foray into non-supernatural horror.
After
he finds himself stranded at a truck stop in Missouri, Mark Sieber gets
one of the biggest shocks of his life when he recognizes the face of a
little girl on a Missing poster as belonging to the same little girl he
saw only a few minutes before. Looking around for some sign of her, he
comes back to his table in the restaurant to find the little sitting
there, waiting for him.
"I'm sorry, mister," is all she seems capable of saying.
As
the police and media begin to converge on the truck stop, Mark retreats
back to his hotel room to call his wife and let her know what's going
on, only to be taken hostage by the same people who released the little
girl. But his abductors are little more than children themselves.
Ranging
in ages from 12 to 19, Mark's abductors are in the process of escaping
from a sadistic pedophile known to them only as "Grendel" a man whose
practices include torture and mutilation specifically, mutilation of
the face.
Mark's abductors have all been mutilated by Grendel
who may be very close behind them and need someone with a "normal face"
to help them carry out their plan for justice and returning home.
For
the next few days, Mark will come to understand not only the inhuman
horror that these children have suffered, but how they eventually
learned to fight back and how they discovered that Grendel and his
practices are at the center of a very complex network catering to those
who tastes run toward the molestation and mutilation of children.
Prodigal
Blues is perhaps Braunbeck's most suspenseful and emotionally powerful
work to date; a story of suffering, depravity, redemption, and in the
end the individual's compassion for his or her fellow human beings that
can lead some people to finding reserves of courage and determination
they never thought they possessed.
Terrifying, suspenseful, sometimes surprisingly funny, and ultimately moving, Prodigal Blues is quintessential Braunbeck.
