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Instant Messenger
Instant Messenger is an American thriller novel that blends elements of the crime and horror genres. It features George Otto Simbalahe Toure AKA GHOST, a brilliant drug dealing thug and sadistic serial killer.
The GHOST is an only child who lives on a trailer park in central Maine. He lives with his father, a Haitian immigrant and step mother who is a native of Maine. At an early age, George is the subject of ritualistic abuse from his father . . . severe beatings and systematic torture. Throughout his early childhood there are elements of voodoo and Santería. His crimes start at the tender age of ten, when he begins stealing from neighbors. His peeping tom activities soon evolve into black mail as he discovers many neighbors in situations he quickly recognizes the neighbors wouldn't want their husbands' loved one's and especially the authorities to know about. His reputation grows and soon becomes to go to person among his peers for anything from drugs to gadgetry.
At age 16 his first murder and his blackmailing activities evolve beyond the compounds of the trailer park . . . He also becomes a ruthless drug lord, two dedicated generals. They kill maim and torture their competition along the way to the top. Millions of dollars begin to flow . . . But his secret murders of women continue, so does his blackmail evolve to involve local police departments and even judges. The blackmail is usually of a sexual nature. He has a cunning way of making it appear that high ranking members of society are child molesters or statutory rapists . . . His drug territory grows . . .
When the GHOST zones in on the a Homicide detectives' daughter, Faye Patterson, he does not yet realize she is the child of the cop he once tortured and killed years before . . . When he finds out, the idea of do0ing the things he'd done to the father to the child is alluring, that's until the mother, Faye comes along and the opportunity of having the entire family throws him into a whirl spin.
Faye's assigned partner J.C. seems to have inside information that could help find GHOST and rescue the abductee. Instead, J.C. begins hiding information from the department and playing games with important clues and insights about GHOST . . .
Ghost kidnaps the daughter and the manhunt begins. Ghost is luring Faye into a deathly trap and all with the help of her partner . . . Faye is thrust into the path of GHOST's murderous fantasy. She needs to stop him before her daughter becomes his next victim . . . and save herself.
The GHOST is an only child who lives on a trailer park in central Maine. He lives with his father, a Haitian immigrant and step mother who is a native of Maine. At an early age, George is the subject of ritualistic abuse from his father . . . severe beatings and systematic torture. Throughout his early childhood there are elements of voodoo and Santería. His crimes start at the tender age of ten, when he begins stealing from neighbors. His peeping tom activities soon evolve into black mail as he discovers many neighbors in situations he quickly recognizes the neighbors wouldn't want their husbands' loved one's and especially the authorities to know about. His reputation grows and soon becomes to go to person among his peers for anything from drugs to gadgetry.
At age 16 his first murder and his blackmailing activities evolve beyond the compounds of the trailer park . . . He also becomes a ruthless drug lord, two dedicated generals. They kill maim and torture their competition along the way to the top. Millions of dollars begin to flow . . . But his secret murders of women continue, so does his blackmail evolve to involve local police departments and even judges. The blackmail is usually of a sexual nature. He has a cunning way of making it appear that high ranking members of society are child molesters or statutory rapists . . . His drug territory grows . . .
When the GHOST zones in on the a Homicide detectives' daughter, Faye Patterson, he does not yet realize she is the child of the cop he once tortured and killed years before . . . When he finds out, the idea of do0ing the things he'd done to the father to the child is alluring, that's until the mother, Faye comes along and the opportunity of having the entire family throws him into a whirl spin.
Faye's assigned partner J.C. seems to have inside information that could help find GHOST and rescue the abductee. Instead, J.C. begins hiding information from the department and playing games with important clues and insights about GHOST . . .
Ghost kidnaps the daughter and the manhunt begins. Ghost is luring Faye into a deathly trap and all with the help of her partner . . . Faye is thrust into the path of GHOST's murderous fantasy. She needs to stop him before her daughter becomes his next victim . . . and save herself.
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 21, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 25, 2010
When I came across a buyer’s review for Instant Messenger by an unknown author Benoit Akoa on amazon.com, I did what most buyers would do when faced with words such as “Scary, gripping, realistic” I thought that’s just her opinion and actually set out to prove the reviewer wrong—Well, I was wrong.
I was home for my hour long lunch when the book arrived in the mail, it was 12:05 p.m. on a Thursday. I tore the packaging and sat on the stairs of my small porch, eager to read “Scary, gripping, realistic” stuff.
This quirky story set in Maine, hits it off with. . . As the title promises, Instant Messages between two serious philanderers, total strangers to one another. The conversations trod the fine line of what I promised never to read—“dirty” books. Then I remembered
“ . . .realistic” and realized, ‘Oh yeah, this is how lots of folks out there spend their time instant messaging one another, even worse than this’. By then, I was well beyond the second chapter when I was thrown into an out of worldly scene of a creep alone in a darkened room, staring at a computer screen. Lordy, lordy . . I only had 15 minutes to head back to work.
The avid reader in me was debating to take this fiendish looking book back to my office, shut the door and hang a “On a conference call” sign and keep reading. But I rushed inside, grabbed a raw hotdog and bun from the fridge, squirted some ketchup on the thing and walloped it while reading the back cover and cheating by peeking at some pages further ahead, “Good stuff . . .Good stuff” I said aloud.
I remember this day; it was the first time I ever picked up a self-published book by an unknown author and was actually yanked into the story from the first page.
That evening, I dove into Maine. The combination of colorful characters that popped out of the pages and Akoa’s relentless writing style kept me turning the pages until the wee hours of the morning. I finished it.
A few things I noticed:
He started somewhere in the present—in the middle of the story, and somewhere towards the end of it. I thought it was a neat way of avoiding a prologue. He successfully began the story in full swing.
There is no laundry list descriptions. His colorful characters and settings are a part of the story—well painted into the story, three-dimensional and palpable.
With many characters coming in and out of the pages, one would expect voice and point of view issues. He successfully weaved in and out of each character without losing my attention like even some experienced authors do. I strongly commend him for that.
Action: you don’t like the first day of school beginnings? Neither do I. He hooked me in from the word go by embroiling my imagination with ongoing events right off the bat, as if I were already in the middle of the story. But he did not stop there. The action is definitely gripping and continuous. No dull moments throughout the book. Continuously heart thumping and mind jogging ‘till the end.
The violence is raw, unpolished, and garish, a little more than I bargained for—Realistic. When I’ve always thought of psychotic and sadistic murders, they’ve always gone by quick in my mind’s eye. Through this book, I got a close-up glimpse of what goes on during those murders.
One of the biggest problems I usually have with these stories and new authors is the information dump in the beginning and throughout, where the writer feels they need to justify this or that behavior, or action. I feel the back-story in Instant Messenger is well justified and justifies itself by being like the core entertainment in many ways and ties all loose ends. Almost like reading two different stories that all blend into one. To some, he may have broken a rule or two in the genre, but I feel that's what fresh salient creative writing is all about, right?
Verdict: Five star,
I was home for my hour long lunch when the book arrived in the mail, it was 12:05 p.m. on a Thursday. I tore the packaging and sat on the stairs of my small porch, eager to read “Scary, gripping, realistic” stuff.
This quirky story set in Maine, hits it off with. . . As the title promises, Instant Messages between two serious philanderers, total strangers to one another. The conversations trod the fine line of what I promised never to read—“dirty” books. Then I remembered
“ . . .realistic” and realized, ‘Oh yeah, this is how lots of folks out there spend their time instant messaging one another, even worse than this’. By then, I was well beyond the second chapter when I was thrown into an out of worldly scene of a creep alone in a darkened room, staring at a computer screen. Lordy, lordy . . I only had 15 minutes to head back to work.
The avid reader in me was debating to take this fiendish looking book back to my office, shut the door and hang a “On a conference call” sign and keep reading. But I rushed inside, grabbed a raw hotdog and bun from the fridge, squirted some ketchup on the thing and walloped it while reading the back cover and cheating by peeking at some pages further ahead, “Good stuff . . .Good stuff” I said aloud.
I remember this day; it was the first time I ever picked up a self-published book by an unknown author and was actually yanked into the story from the first page.
That evening, I dove into Maine. The combination of colorful characters that popped out of the pages and Akoa’s relentless writing style kept me turning the pages until the wee hours of the morning. I finished it.
A few things I noticed:
He started somewhere in the present—in the middle of the story, and somewhere towards the end of it. I thought it was a neat way of avoiding a prologue. He successfully began the story in full swing.
There is no laundry list descriptions. His colorful characters and settings are a part of the story—well painted into the story, three-dimensional and palpable.
With many characters coming in and out of the pages, one would expect voice and point of view issues. He successfully weaved in and out of each character without losing my attention like even some experienced authors do. I strongly commend him for that.
Action: you don’t like the first day of school beginnings? Neither do I. He hooked me in from the word go by embroiling my imagination with ongoing events right off the bat, as if I were already in the middle of the story. But he did not stop there. The action is definitely gripping and continuous. No dull moments throughout the book. Continuously heart thumping and mind jogging ‘till the end.
The violence is raw, unpolished, and garish, a little more than I bargained for—Realistic. When I’ve always thought of psychotic and sadistic murders, they’ve always gone by quick in my mind’s eye. Through this book, I got a close-up glimpse of what goes on during those murders.
One of the biggest problems I usually have with these stories and new authors is the information dump in the beginning and throughout, where the writer feels they need to justify this or that behavior, or action. I feel the back-story in Instant Messenger is well justified and justifies itself by being like the core entertainment in many ways and ties all loose ends. Almost like reading two different stories that all blend into one. To some, he may have broken a rule or two in the genre, but I feel that's what fresh salient creative writing is all about, right?
Verdict: Five star,
May 14, 2015
I first read Instant Messenger in 2009 when Benoit Akoa was getting ready to publish it. I edited it for him, and our co-workers joked that I had a very cool and professional way of critiquing the murder scenes, making sure they were described in a way that was aesthetically pleasing from a technical standpoint.
All jokes aside, this is not a "pleasant" book as it deals with extremely macabre subject matter. I did not walk away from it undisturbed. However, I am especially impressed reading it now, as a finished product, with the way it was put together. Akoa wrote a book that delves deep into its characters inner lives, builds suspense in an effective way and is also quirky enough to capture your imagination. I also suspect a lot of research must have gone into writing this.
I think it's a great debut novel, and I hope Akoa goes on to publish more.
All jokes aside, this is not a "pleasant" book as it deals with extremely macabre subject matter. I did not walk away from it undisturbed. However, I am especially impressed reading it now, as a finished product, with the way it was put together. Akoa wrote a book that delves deep into its characters inner lives, builds suspense in an effective way and is also quirky enough to capture your imagination. I also suspect a lot of research must have gone into writing this.
I think it's a great debut novel, and I hope Akoa goes on to publish more.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews