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Sarah1984
Nov 28, 2014Sarah1984 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
I've been reading this for seven days now, and it's continuing to baffle me - in a good way. The town of Wink, New Mexico seems to be inhabited by some type of either aliens or supernatural beings who are hiding as humans. Mona Bright comes along looking for information about her mother, and for unexplained reasons (probably something to do with who, or what, her mother was, but it's not clear) she can see the different layers of reality that exist in Wink. Just as she arrives in town the townspeople (humans and 'aliens' alike) are holding a funeral for Mr Weringer, one of the 'aliens' as it turns out. The 'aliens' believe they cannot be harmed, cannot be murdered but strange guy in a dirty canvas suit and panama hat has some humans working for him, helping him murder the supposedly unmurderable. The murders are possibly the strangest part of the whole story, so far. The men - Norris, Dord, Dee, and Zimmerman, all run by Bolan are sent to retrieve a box, inside which they've very carefully placed, without touching, the top half of a rabbit's skull (the lower jaw is missing, don't ask me why). They then corner, capture or deliver the skull to their intended murder victim. They place the partial rabbit skull on the victim (still without touching it) or the victim touches it themselves when opening their surprise gift box. The men then make themselves scarce, because as soon as the victim has touched the skull the man in the canvas suit turns up and the screaming starts. Because of Mona's ability to see what isn't there, and Laura's (her mother) complete personality change after her departure from Wink I'm getting the idea that Laura was one of these 'aliens' and that after seven years away from her home and siblings she could no longer take the separation, ending with her suicide. This means that Mona was supposed to be in Wink, that she's practically a local. Add the fact that she's an ex-cop makes it seem likely that she's going to be the one to solve the murders and stop the man in the panama hat. To be continued... An alien invasion story, with a very unique twist! I think there might have even been some religious connotations in there. There was Mother, who had a baby, but he wasn't quite right so she kicked him out of the 'nest'. She then had five further children who all had their own special abilities and were told to never hurt each other, to obey the next oldest sibling, and that they could never die. The oldest sibling called himself Mr First and in the end, after a great battle with Mother, he died to save others. Being the agnostic/atheist that I am I had no idea of the religiousness incorporated into the story, but after having a nightmare vaguely related to the book I described some parts of the plot to my Mum and she said "Oh, that sounds like the bible story of how Lucifer fell from heaven." After that, religious bits kept poking their heads up through the rest of the book, once I'd been made aware of it I couldn't help but see it (kind of like Mona after she began to see the different layers of the town). In summation, I really enjoyed the book and will definitely be on the lookout for other books by Bennett.