Book Review Devils Kill Devils by Johnny Compton 5/5 stars

  This book was PERFECTION! 

Johnny Compton delivers a fresh, tight, creepy, freaky, spooky novel that involves vampires, Gods, demons and angels- all within a contemporary setting without allowing any sinking in to the maudlin, stereotypical situations that we sometimes find in horror fiction. This felt, entirely new, and yet somehow very connected to the classic horror that fans of the genre love. 

 In Summary- Sarita's a woman who's always had a guardian angel. She's not entirely comfortable with that fact, but she's certainly shaped her young life around the angel's protection. When this angel kills someone she cares about, she starts to question, and unravel what's really going on, and... readers, what's really going on isn't exactly angelic. Telling too much more might "spoil" the novel, so I'm going to stop right there. 

   I am always a bit hesitant about male authors writing books with female protagonists/main characters. In the first few charters, I did wonder a bit if this was going to be a problem. Sarita is not that fully developed, and that initially bothered me. As I became fully engaged in the story that Compton was telling, I realized that Sarita, herself, was never really the main attraction- she was just a person swept into this drama between devils, angels, Gods and vampires, destined to play a part, but not personally committed to it-until she had to be, which was much further along.  So in this case- I did not find any issue with how he portrayed Sarita, or actually any of the women in the book.  Big bonus points for this author! She did come through this, like an amazing final girl in the end, which put a smile on my face. 

Compton's portrayal of vampires- in all their gruesome glory was also  enjoyable.  This may be because I've been reading a bunch of very cute-sy Vampire rom-coms that kind of make a joke out of them- having to ask permission to enter homes, disliking garlic in cooking, wearing shades all the time etc. Not Compton's Vamps. These creatures are true night crawlers who aren't at all interested in love or permissions. It's all power and lust, especially blood lust for them. The fear they invoke reminds me of the sick dread one experiences reading parts of Dracula. 

Photo by Carol Highsmith - 

• Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

I kept imagining this as the opening to a certain mountain featured in the novel, though this certainly isn't how it's portrayed- I couldn't help myself. 

 To round this all out, Compton pulls in some local (real, historical places in Texas) areas and some global myths to round out and amp up the creepy factor- there's a unique melding of some Texan stories with old Russian creatures that is just somehow satisfying. 

      Let me know if you pick this up! This one is not one for my local book club, but it should be one for horror readers. I'm racing over to my library right now to find his other, earlier novel - The Spite house.