Book Review: Black Valley

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Black Valley     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Jim Brown
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Ballantine, Jul 2003, $23.95, 368 pp.

Over two decades ago, five Black Valley, Oregon teens buried a still living Whitey Dobbs in the allegedly haunted Hawkins Hill. The quintet feel justice has been served, as the maniacal sadistic Dobbs was very quick to use a switchblade on anyone. Unbeknownst to the group is Dobbs avoided certain death due to radioactivity that turned him into an immortal and allowed him to travel back and forth through time.

Dobbs visits Black Valley intent on killing his enemies one at a time. Feeling no remorse, Dobbs methodically carves up four of his foes and anyone else who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Only Nobel Prize winning scientist Dean Truman remains, but he is also the most difficult of the prey as he begins to understand how Dobbs survived his interment and how he can vanish at will. Dean's peer, Piper Blackmoore, joins forces with him in an effort to defeat permanently the slippery Dobbs.

BLACK VALLEY is a supernatural serial killer thriller that seems to go just over the edge with one unbelievable twist after another, but readers will relish suspending belief because the terror seems so real due to the reactions of the victims. Dobbs is almost a comic book character and has been seen in some form of personification (Krueger?) in movies and books often, but Jim Brown never allows him to go too far while managing to make him an original. His opponents add to his aura. The audience will applaud Mr. Brown for this non -stop preternatural action thriller.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner

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