Quietus

Quietus by Vivian Schilling
Reviewed by Claudine

Picked this off the 'Recommendations’ display shelves at the Central Library some time ago. I was attracted by its dark brooding greenish cover with a sole raven flying across the night sky.

A supernatural thriller, it starts with a plane crash where the main character Kylie O’Rourke finds herself staring into the distinctively human eyes of a raven which lands on the wing of the plane just minutes before it crashes.

What follows after the plane crash as Kylie regains consciousness in the hospital and what she gradually recollects is really creepy. She recalls being in a lodge atop the mountain with a few fellow passengers before they are pulled back into their bodies upon their rescue. She meets a man who initially intrigues her but who also starts stalking her, only to discover among police files that he had been charged with murder and had been executed many years back. A series of bizarre incidents take place and the reader is sucked helplessly into a spiral of events that seem destined.

Working on the ideas of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and that Death never lets go of those who cheat him once, this chilling book lingers on the possibility that once you do, he will find you in the end, somehow, anywhere, anytime and most frighteningly, soon.

Will he succeed in claiming Kylie?