A review by erine
The Hollow Ones by Guillermo del Toro, Chuck Hogan

4.0

At first I was reminded of Stephen King’s The Outsiders: the combination of crime and creature, of hard-bitten reality and otherworldly strangeness. But this reads as even more cinematic, and the long leaps through time made it a choppier experience. Odessa is likable and sympathetic as the main character; less so is Hugo Blackwood who has a more wooden feel. The remaining supporting cast is less fleshed out, but offer some nice moments.

The story itself begins with a horrific crime, and then relatively quickly begins to trace some of the circumstances that led to that first tragic scene. But there are a lot of leaps that the reader is asked to take, and a fair amount that goes unexplained.

Spoiler

We know that Hugo Blackwood participated in various magical rituals that changed his nature, consigned his wife to limbo and released at least four (maybe more?) malevolent spirits. He has been in pursuit of the spirits ever since in an effort to release his wife. But for someone who has lived so long, Blackwood seems surprisingly unadapted to modern life. His relationship with Earl Solomon is also hazy. They seemed to work together as partners for many years, or Solomon was his archivist, or Blackwood actually had an arrangement with the FBI. Solomon seemed resigned to this relationship in some ways, but very unsettled in others.

I found this overall to be intriguing, and a speedy, but not very smooth read.