Title: The Pagan
Author: Rod Nave
Publisher: Hayden Bridge Publishing
ISBN: 978-0578070575
Pages: 280
Genre: Thriller
Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
What begins as a search and rescue effort becomes a search and destroy struggle for survival in this remarkably creative dark adventure novel, The Pagan written by Rod Nave.When a team of young volunteers charter a plane from Miami to Haiti to help the victims of the recent earthquake disaster of 2010, they unknowingly embark upon an adventure of satanic proportions. Being transported as powerless pawns into a past pact made with the Devil, the rescue team inadvertently steps into a “quicksand type sequence” of extraordinary events.
The dozen rescue workers land in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and assemble their gear for a bus ride into the jungle on a mission to offer aid and medical help to villagers away from the city. They soon find themselves engulfed in a quagmire of voodoo glazed zombie-like natives overpowering their bus. In an attempt to ward off the hazardous onslaught of the natives attacking the bus, they throw food and supplies out of the windows of the bus to distract the crowd allowing them to escape. The driver, fearful of being overridden by the mob, navigates the bus down a dirt road and up a gated driveway to an abandoned mansion. The group seeks refuge to gather their thoughts, take inventory of the loss of items and create their next plan of action, “Plan B.” Exploring their new surroundings, things become a bit odd, eerie and disturbing. What seemed to be a sequence of random events resulting in the group being stranded in this dilapidated mansion unravels itself as being actually a planned force of the Devil’s own doing. The mansion, unknown at the time of entering, is in fact the home of the group leader’s grandfather – a place where he lived as a child for a short period of time. Certain artifacts and events trigger his recollection, and all too soon he realizes his presence is the consequence of a deal made with the Devil over 200 years ago by prior generations of his family. The Devil has manifested himself as a pagan doll to claim the debt owed to him of these mortal souls.
Rod Nave writes wonderfully, and creates a novel that reads like a screenplay for a truly scary movie. He cleverly contemporized his novel with a very recent event – the January 12th 2010 earthquake in Haiti, a mere five months prior to the time of this review. His use of dialog and character development is awesome. He creates a credible group of characters within believable circumstances, even with the sobering reality of having a cell phone available. He takes what is at first a predictable development of situations and does masterful plot twists and surprises, spiraling the reader into a dizzying world of blood saturated voodoo spells, Devil worshiping, Christian rituals and the penetrating sinister blue eyes of The Pagan. Careful, “Don’t drop the clay statue,” you wouldn’t want to see what happens if you crack its shell and unleash what’s inside. “Lookout! Oh no… Oh my God!”
