Now THIS is a SEQUEL...

RETURN TO DARKNESS by Michael Laimo (2011 Bad Moon Books / 337 pp / tp)


This sequel to the author's 2004 DEEP IN THE DARKNESS picks up right where things left off seven years ago.  The backstory: Dr. Michael Cayle--who has moved his family from Manhattan to a small town in New Hampshire--becomes a slave to a race of small creatures known as Isolates.  They hold his wife and daughter prisoner as they force Michael to heal their sick and mend their wounded in their underground lair.  The creatures have control of everyone in town, and five surrounding towns are also under their spell, making escape impossible.


RETURN TO DARKNESS finds Dr. Michael about to committ suicide, when the thought of his wife and daughter out there in the woods convinces him to go on with the hellish ordeal.  His wife--having been raped by an Isolate and given birth to a demon baby in the first novel--now has Isolate DNA running through her veins.  She appears to Michael as a half human/half monster...but his young daughter Jessica still seems to be all human.  The only way for Michael to get his family back is to have a different person sacrifice an animal to the creatures...a feat that was put on him by an alleged friend, a ritual that has been the town's dark tradition for centuries.


A family of four move in to the neighborhood, and before long Michael plans ways to get one of them to take his place.  But the father is a drunk lunatic, his wife and teenage son no better.  The eighteen-year-old daughter Shea, however, takes a liking to Michael, and before long helps him find his daughter while he helps her to get revenge on her father who has raped and abused her since she was a child.


What follows is a bloody horrific time as Michael--with increasingly poor health due to struggles with the Isolates--plots a way to escape the cursed town with his daughter, all the while wondering what to do about his possessed wife and his feelings for the young girl who risks life and limb to help him.


Like DEEP IN THE DARKNESS, RETURN is chock-full of suspense, plenty of scares and creepy atmosphere, and an impending sense of doom that'll leave readers breathless.  Laimo gives the "ancient evil in a small town" thing a fresh kick in the pants here, delivering a sequel that's every bit as frightening as its predecessor.  This is MUST reading for fans of DEEP, and while newbies will get a better effect if they read DEEP first, there's still enough background given to make it work as a stand alone novel.


The seven year wait for RETURN was well worth it, from its fast paced opening right up to the darker than dark finale.