ALL THE PRETTY DEAD GIRLS
John Manning
Pinnacle
Thriller
ISBN: 9780786017980
John Manning is new to the thriller fiction genre, at least to me. A quick check fails to reveal titles other than the newly published ALL THE PRETTY DEAD GIRLS written under that name. Yet his mastery of plot, characterization and pacing demonstrates a level of storytelling beyond that of a debut novelist. I have my own guesses as to who the John Manning behind the book might be; regardless of whether I am right or wrong, this is a thriller worthy of the name from beginning to end.
ALL THE PRETTY DEAD GIRLS centers on Sue Barlow, an incoming freshman at Wilbourne College in upstate New York. Wilbourne is an exclusive private college that has a small student body, primarily made up of women, and has existed for two centuries just outside the quiet town of Lebanon. Barlow, raised by her extremely wealthy grandparents in Manhattan, has had a somewhat cloistered upbringing, despite her cosmopolitan residence. While she initially welcomes the opportunity to be on her own, something about Wilbourne makes her uneasy. There is an oppressiveness that permeates the college, one that is made manifest by its strict curfew rules. Barlow also believes that she repeatedly sees the face of a young woman, screaming, in one of the dormitory windows.
Barlow’s uneasiness gives way to outright panic when another student vanishes and is feared to have been murdered. Miles Holland, the sheriff investigating the disappearance, soon discovers that Wilbourne has been the site of similar incidents involving young women that have occurred every 20 years or so, yet all of the townspeople seem to forget. Worse, the town in general and the school dean in particular appear to be generally unconcerned about its sordid history. It is all the more ironic that Perry Holland, Miles’s son and a deputy sheriff, is the first person to meet Barlow when she arrives in Lebanon, for it is Barlow who unwittingly holds the key to what has been happening in the town. Further, her arrival will begin a chain reaction of events that will fulfill prophecy and potentially unleash chaos not only upon the small town in upstate New York, but also upon the entire world.
The key to stopping these events lies with an unlikely girl: Bernadette de Salis, who, on the cusp of adolescence, has experienced the stigmata --- the physical manifestation of the wounds of the crucified Christ --- contemporaneous with a visitation from the Blessed Mother. Bernadette, a professor from the college who has studied such appearances, and an enigmatic priest from the Vatican are aligned against the forces of darkness. Yet the key to the defeat of the power about to be unleashed ultimately lies within the very source of it: Sue Barlow herself.
While ALL THE PRETTY DEAD GIRLS is a somewhat long novel, one cannot help but fly through it. Manning’s narrative talents are such that the pages seem to turn by themselves. He has a cinematic vision that causes the action to leap off of the pages, so that it reads almost like a movie for the mind. And while he runs the risk of alienating readers with his political characterizations, those seeking nothing more than a good story well told will look past that to the solid bedrock of his plot and the mystery that underlies it.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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