Darkman: The Gods of Hell by Randall Boyll

 

(pb; 1994; third 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.

“Now, across the city, children are disappearing, and the niece of Darkman’s former fiancée, Julie Hastings, is the latest victim. Searching for the kidnappers, Darkman stumbles across a strange cult sacrificing the children in a quest for immortality. Forced to infiltrate the group, Darkman must confront the diabolical plan’s evil mastermind, a deadly killer with a tortured past who will stop at nothing to find the secret of everlasting life.”

 

Review

A few days have passed since the events of the last Darkman book, The Price of Fear. Julie Hastings is recovering from Alfred Lowell/Witchfinder’s gasoline-soaked burning attack when the pestiferous Detective Sam Weatherspoon, investigating the Witchfinder’s assaults, tells her that her brother and sister-in-law (Jerry and Margaret Hastings) were killed in a home invasion. One of their young daughters, Tina, escaped harm and capture, while her tween sister (Shawna) was kidnapped by unknown criminals─the seventh kidnapping in a string of them.

Unbeknownst to Julie, Weatherspoon, and Darkman (a.k.a. Peyton Westlake, Julie’s ex-fiance) these crimes are being carried out by thugs, Pocketknife (a.k.a. Percy Hursch) and Flynn, at the behest of a desperate former-evangelist cult leader, Reverend Norman Hopewell, whose “Ceremonies of Youthful Defilement” require fresh female virgins.

Also in the pulptastic, fast-paced mix: Martin Clayborne, rich “local real estate developer” (from The Price of Fear), who continues to show romantic interest in Julie, and Darla Dalton, a mysterious woman who shows similar interest in Westlake.

Like Boyll’s previous Darkman novels, Gods is a hard-to-set-down, comic book-y, gory and over-the-top work with lots of cinematic vivid action, hyped up emotions and situations, and excellent writing and editing. This is a fun, worth-owning read (as are all the Darkman books thus far), if you’re looking for an unpretentious B-flick-style book that evolves the series and its distinctive and well-sketched characters between the splatter, violence, comeuppance and other explosions. 

Followed by Boyll’s Darkman: In the Face of Death.