DARKBOUND (Michaelbrent Collings) - June 24/17

Well, it's certainly a bit jarring to go from Sophie's Choice to this. Collings is far, far from the writer that Styron is and though Darkbound is short, it's very rarely engrossing. There are only a few characters and yet Collings does a horrible job of transforming them into compelling protagonists. The thin narrative just seems like an excuse to kill each person brutally throughout. I was gonna give this two stars but I will admit the final twist, that the narrator was also a very bad individual and that the train was literally hell, was quite nifty and unpredictable. **1/2 out of ****