Darkman: The Price of Fear by Randall Boyll

 

(pb; 1994; second entry in the book-only Darkman quadrilogy)

From the back cover

“Darkman: Once Peyton Westlake was a brilliant scientist conducing ground-breaking work with artificial skin─but his life was changed forever when vicious gangsters destroyed his lab and left him horribly burned beyond recognition. At that moment, Peyton Westlake died and re-emerged from the hellish fire as DARKMAN, a creature of the night driven by superhuman rage. Using his artificial skin process and his ability to become anyone for ninety-nine minutes, DARKMAN extracted a deadly revenge on the men who destroyed his life.

“When Darkman stumbles across a plot to take control of Eastview Estates, an exclusive real estate development, he decides to put a stop to it by infiltrating the criminal organization responsible. But soon, DARKMAN finds more than he bargained for as he becomes embroiled in  a dangerous web of murder and corruption.

“For little does he know that an ancient evil stalks the city, and DARKMAN may be his next victim.”

 

Review

Darkman, seen in his Robert G. Durant mask by some of Durant’s ex-partners-in-crime, is drawn into their plan to violently clear a particular neighborhood (Eastview Estates) of its residents so the criminals’ corporate mystery-boss can purchase, raze, and redevelop it. The street-level gang, led by a lowlife named Stryker, eventually leads Darkman back into contact with Julie Hastings (his fiancée in Darkman), whose professional contacts include John McCoy (sleazy lawyer from Darkman: The Hangman) and, quite possibly, Stryker’s corporate puppet master, who’s a top-tier predator.

A Story-B plot runs through Price─one that centers around a crazed psychiatric patient (Alfred Lowell, identifying as the “Witchfinder”) who has taken it upon himself to burn all evil women he finds.

Boyll, again, delivers a thrilling, pulpy, and tightly penned antihero actioner, with colorful villainy, a mile-wide vein of dark and goofy humor, pathos and a fast-moving plot that manages to incorporate societal concerns while providing occasional splatter. It’s especially impressive how Boyll keeps his Darkman books (thus far) true to his source movie tie-in novel while gradually expanding the characters and themes within the books. As with Darkman and Hangman, Price is worth owning.

Followed by Darkman: The Gods of Hell.