Reprisal by F. Paul Wilson

 

(pb; 1992: fifth book in the Nightworld Cycle, aka Adversary Cycle.)

 

From the back cover

“In The Keep, a squad of Nazi soldiers unleashed a terrible life force far more monstrous than the Third Reich.

“In Reborn, a human embryo struck fear in the hearts of the chosen few who could feel its power from the womb.

“Now, in Reprisal, bestselling author F. Paul Wilson resurrects the ancient, vampiric evil in a young man born of flesh and blood. A young southern college student named Rafe hides his true and secret identity. But soon the whole world will know. All of humankind will suffer. And Rafe will feed, forever, on their tears and pain.”

 

Review

Reprisal is a relatively straightforward (with a few big twists, fewer than usual) read. A good number of its characters, e.g., former Jesuit priest Will Ryan, now going under the name Will Ryerson, are returnees from Reborn, and two of them—Mr. Veilleur, aka Glaeken and Glenn; Rasalom, aka Molasar—appeared in the first Nightworld Cycle novel, The Keep.

But things are different now for them. Veilleur/Glaeken is a septuagenarian man, whose wife (Magda, from Keep) now has Alzheimer’s. Rasalom, who’s gone through a few incarnations, is now Rafe Losmara, a collegiate edgelord-type who’s in tune with his dark, murky-world powers—powers he means to unleash upon the world in full, once he’s accomplished his current mission, something that has to do with Ryan/Ryerson and those around him.

An easy-to-gauge-its-“secrets” novel, Reprisal is a fun-blast offset from some of Wilson’s more ambitious works. I enjoyed it for its almost B-movie-simple plot, its tight editing, and straightforward pushing-toward-a-Rasalom-Glaeken-climax writing.

One of my favorite Wilson books, this. It’s not a wrap-up—it has a semi-cliffhanger-ish finish—but it’s a satisfying and hard-to-set-down bringing together of familiar characters worth rooting for or loathing. Followed by Signalz.