Review: Soul Seeker by Kaylin McFarren

When a corrupted child grows into an unrepentantly evil young man, he must be stopped, and that will require the investigations of a horrified father and the services of a dedicated demon, in the colorfully complex fantasy by author Kaylin McFarren, Soul Seeker.

Firefighter Benjamin Poe is fed up with his lazy, complaining son Gabe, but those feelings amplify when there’s a fire at Gabe’s workplace, killing the three co-workers he particularly despised. Poe can’t help but try to learn more until he is confronted by a strange man with bright flashing eyes. Crighton is so well acquainted with other people’s secrets that Poe is wary and extremely hostile – a hostility that will lead him to murder his own son. Gabe is a psychopath who has killed more than once and needs to be dragged away to outer darkness, and Crighton is the being charged with such hellish tasks.

This astonishing story of skewed emotions and an over-reaching fate in Poe’s tragic life is only one part of McFarren’s artfully conceived universe. In another twist, a widower insane with grief isolates himself periodically in a remote cabin, and every time he stays there, a wilderness hiker disappears. The same investigator who takes a special interest in Poe as he awaits execution will uncover the corpses in the cabin. And Crighton, ruled by Lucifer and his beautiful lover Lilith, will be on both scenes. As the focus of the novel shifts downward, the reader will see Hell in a new, eerie light, and will observe the soul-harvester Crighton performing one good deed – though not without some powerful motivation.

Award-winning author McFarren, who has composed fantasies with themes touching on many elements of the unearthly, is here tackling issues surrounding the timeless struggle between good and evil, heaven and hell, and angels and demons. Her gifts as a wordsmith and yarn spinner are clearly shown as this novel evolves from the Poe family’s distressingly realistic conflict, to an eerie, cinematic whodunit with a plausible villain, to a meeting with a soul snatcher who leads the plot beyond the real world into the underworld and his own struggle with the forces of goodness and light.

Lucifer and his minions come to life in McFarren’s story, predictably sex and death obsessed. Crighton stands out as a three-dimensional creature; his job is to harvest corrupted souls and send them to Lucifer’s realm, but he is, we will learn, capable of love – for an angel, no less. He even evinces what seems like human pity for the plight of the imprisoned Poe, a unique and compelling take. The crisscrossing of storylines is one of McFarren’s great strengths, which she amply demonstrates here, weaving a tapestry that keeps the reader guessing until the book’s final pages.

With layered prose and grand panoramas, Soul Seeker brings a dark world to vivid life, and fantasy fans will welcome this latest work by an imaginative author.

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