What I'm Reading: The Hollow Ones

The current issue of Booklist has my review of  a new series that will be very popular.

The Hollow Ones.

del Toro, Guillermo (author), Chuck Hogan (author).

Aug. 2020. 336p. Grand Central, $28 (9781538761748); e-book, $14.99 (9781538761731). First published May 15, 2020 (Booklist).

Del Toro and Hogan team up again [The Strain] this time opening a brand new series, in an imaginatively built world that both pays direct homage to the progenitor of the occult detective story, Algernon Blackwood, and stands alone as an original, speculative thriller for today. FBI agent Hardwicke’s life and career are upended when her partner goes mad during a raid, forcing her to kill him, observing something shadowy leaving his body as he dies. The aftermath sends her on a quest for answers, leading her to an aging colleague, Agent Solomon, his civil rights era case, and the immortal detective, John Blackwood, who has been chasing the ancient evil at the center of it all for the last 500 years-- the Hollow Ones. With a shifting time frame that fills in the back stories for Blackwood, Solomon, and even the Hollow Ones themselves while also generating palpable suspense, this is a compellingly paced supernatural thriller, that refuses to sacrifice the details readers need in order to become invested in the story's well crafted dread and danger. Ultimately though it is Hardwicke and Blackwood, quite an odd couple partnership, that readers will be inevitably drawn to as they reconcile each other’s strengths and weaknesses, working together on an otherworldly assignment with very real world consequences. A great choice for those who enjoy popular speculative investigative series like those by the team of Lincioln and Child or Christopher Golden, but also for fans of occult thrillers with a nod to horror masters of the past like The Twisted Ones by Kingfisher.

Further Appeal: The keys here are the links to the origins of the occult detective story in general and the characters.  

Hardwicke is an interesting protagonist. She is complex and interesting enough that readers get caught up in her story immediately, but then you add in the intrigue and back story of the first black FBI agent in the south [Solomon] and an immortal detective, and, well many readers will get hooked.

This diverse cast, female detective, black FBI agent, immortal, serve the story telling well because they all live on the fringes on their worlds. It is not strange or odd that together they are able to operate outside normal rules and procedures because they are already discounted by the the establishment.

I really liked Blackwood as a character too. His backstory was fascinating and informed both the thriller storyline in the present and the one from the 1960s.

The press materials hint that this will be a series, and the ending suggest that; however, the ending is extremely satisfying and sweet on its own.

Three Words That Describe This Book: ancient evil, solid world building, occult detective

Readalikes: The titles and series above are a great starting point. There has been a huge increase in revisiting the origins of the occult detective in recent years and there are two anthologies I would suggest for people looking for more options.

Fighters of Fear edited by Mike Ashley which compiles old stories and Hardboiled Horror edited by Jonathan Maberry which is modern authors taking on the occult detective story. Both are excellent additions for public libraries and will lead patrons to many more reading options.