Review by Michael T. Huyck Jr.

A LOWER DEEP by Tom Piccirilli Leisure Books PB $5.99 ISBN: 0-8439-4921-X

With satanic rituals and Familiar family reunions and Lord Arioch (he's managing sixty regions of hell now, you know) all crowded about in just the first chapter, you'd think Tom Piccirilli could come up with time to name his protagonist. But nope - he's known only as "the Necromancer." Even his sidekick - his Robin - his Tonto - is minimally monikered as "Self."

But you get used to it. To be honest, I already was. In Piccirilli's voluminous (200k word) Stoker-nominated DEEP INTO THAT DARKNESS PEERING we were treated to no less than ten adventures featuring our moody Necromancer and his slithering, licking, smart-assed familiar Self.

Here in A LOWER DEEP we have that same dynamic duo walking their dreary world of demons, animated corpses, tortured souls, blasts of conscience and seas of self-doubt. The big difference is that this Leisure novel offers you a 360 plus page blast of the Necromancer's world instead of those tasty but insufficient morsels DEEP INTO THAT DARKNESS PEERING provided.

Oh joyous day.

The story: a decade past the Necromancer belonged to a coven led by the evil and decidedly polysyllabic Jebediah DeLancre (see…Tom can pull a name together.) But that coven's own evil tore it apart, and the implosion stole the only pleasure the Necromancer ever knew - his beautiful Danielle.

Now Jebediah is back. He's got designs on a new coven, a new era, and a blasphemy most readers would never even contemplate. Not with a year of Sundays to work with. But Jebediah needs the arts of the Necromancer to meet his ends and our hero is hardly motivated to help this creep.

Obviously Jeb needs bait? But what? What?

[SWACK]

Oh, that's right. Danielle, of course. Jebediah offers to bring Danielle back from the dead if only the Necromancer will do him this one little favor…

Tom has brought together what is honestly the strangest cast of characters one can imagine. A reverie of dead clown parents and sadomasochistic monks and creatures that violate the boundaries of both Heaven and Hell alike. His conceptualized Christianity splotched with the ochre of his Occult leaves the reader spinning and clawing for the everyday world of Friends, Frazier, and Felicity.

So c'mon, enter the Necromancer's world. Listen to his heart while swallowing Self's street-smart disses. Tread with demons and chat up the dead. It'll make your day. Promise.

Dig up five corpulent BookWyrms, my man.

This review copyright 2001 E.C.McMullen Jr.

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