Synopsis
In Matthew Lyons’ pulse-pounding crime horror, A Mask of Flies, a criminal on the run after a failed heist must confront dark family secrets and demons from her past made flesh.
THE PAST HAS TEETH
In the grisly aftermath of a botched bank heist, career criminal Anne Heller has no choice but to return to her family’s cabin – a secluded shack in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, and the site of her mother’s untimely death.
Along for the ride are Jessup, Anne’s badly wounded partner, and Dutch, the police officer she’s taken hostage. As they wait for help, Anne discovers strange relics from her mother’s past and begins to unfold the mystery of her childhood at the cabin.
Then Jessup goes missing, only to turn up dead. Anne and Dutch bury her friend, but that night, he comes back and knocks at the cabin door.
Not a dream, not a hallucination, but not exactly Jessup, either. Something else. Something wearing her friend’s face. Something hungry…
“An addictive thrill ride.” ―Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
Review
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the audio ARC! Saskia Maarleveld did a great job and brought the story to life, giving the character voice kind of a Poker Face, Natasha Lyonne vibe.
After a traumatic experience as a child, in which she and her mother were forced to flee their little cabin, Anne turned to a life of crime to make ends meet. Always the professional, Anne had so far gotten away scot-free, only agreeing to one final score. However, after a bank robbery gone wrong, she may be forced back into things she’d been running from all her life.
This was a really unique blend of crime and supernatural. It really does feel like bits of It Follows, The Evil Dead, and even Smile meshed together with a criminal on the run. As Anne dodged police and public recognition, there is something eerie and slithering following her all throughout the background.
With an almost whiplash pacing, I thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns in this one, only wondering how things would pan out when the climax seemed to happen too soon (it doesn’t). And of course with such a pace, it does go a bit too fast for the eerie suspense to build up, however the scenes the entity appears in were incredibly creepy, particularly the police station scene.
The only thing that stuck out for me was the police officer as a side character. Anne specifically shoots his partner in the knee, injuring him, but stating several times she did not kill him. But then the kidnapped officer says that no one will believe him that he wasn’t involved and therefore he decides to help her? It just seemed odd to me a kind of a really weak reason for him to be there. Although I did enjoy Anne being multilayered and pulling almost everyone that meets her into her orbit because she wasn’t wholly bad.
Overall, this is a very good one!
Leave a Reply