The Deepest Black

June 1, 2022
The latest mind-bending thriller from Silvis is "inspired by true events"--though provoked might be more exact. Sitting at a Chinese buffet minding his own business, the narrator, one Randall Silvis, is accosted by Thomas Kenneday, who, accurately categorizing Silvis as a veteran crime novelist, sits down unbidden, unfolds a wild story about potential connections between a triple murder and the discovery of an abandoned baby the following day, and invites Silvis to look into the case, or cases, himself. There doesn't seem to be much mystery about the murders: Justin Cirillo, who broke into the home of Dianne Burchette with Jolene Mrozek and Eddie Hudack, has already confessed to shooting Dianne; her boyfriend, Barry Faye; and her 7-year-old daughter, Michelle Jordan. But nobody can identify Baby Doe or explain why she was abandoned in the woods near New Wilmington, Pennsylvania, with a concussion and a broken leg. Unable to find Kenneday after their initial meeting, Silvis approaches Eddie Hudack's sister, Phoebe, a tenant in Dianne's house, for the first of several maddeningly elliptical interviews about the facts behind Justin's unexplained rampage. But his discoveries about the possible relationships among Justin, Dianne, and Baby Doe are rapidly overshadowed by a series of hints about the possible involvement of "men in black, Dan Aykroyd, UFOs, time-traveling cops, Hells Angels, child sexual abuse, disappearing police and prosecutors." Dazzled and dazed by the otherworldly revelations visited on him, Silvis can only conclude that "a war is being fought on this planet for the minds and souls of all of us." A fearfully ambitious muddle whose most lucid feature is the appended Reading Group Guide.

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June 13, 2022
Silvis (the Ryan DeMarco series) serves as his own protagonist in this frustrating standalone. Silvis, who lives in Pennsylvania’s rural Mercer County, is in search of a subject for his next book when he’s approached by Thomas Kennaday, who provides him with details about a local mystery involving an abandoned baby and the shooting deaths of two adults and a child. When pressed, Kennaday refuses to explain how he seems to know even more about these things than the police do and departs. As Silvis begins to investigate, the mystery becomes less about Baby Doe and the murders than about Kennaday himself. Who is he? How does he know as much as he does, including details of future events? How is he able to predict what Silvis will do before Silvis does it? What starts out as a conventional mystery swerves into paranormal territory with references to conspiracy theories, inexplicable events, fringe science, New Age spirituality, and lengthy speculations about other realities. Such topics do little to enhance the plot. This weird novel is unlikely to win Silvis new fans. Agent: Sandy Lu, Book Wyrm Literary.

June 10, 2022

In this work of meta fiction, the character "Randall Silvis," a mystery novelist, has written himself dry. He has no ideas for his next story until a stranger introduces himself as Thomas Kennaday, and asks if Randall knows the story of Baby Doe (a baby found in the woods by two teens) or of the murders in the small town of Bell's Grove, PA. The Baby Doe case piques Randall's interest, but the story of three people killed at the Burchette house is even more interesting to him. The desperate author follows Kennaday's instructions to talk with Phoebe Hudack, one of the survivors of the Burchette house murders, which included a young girl. But Phoebe also has instructions from Kennaday: to draw out the story she tells, and to keep some of it hidden. Although Randall questions other witnesses, reads all the newspaper accounts, and talks with the police, he realizes the mysterious Kennaday is somehow guiding this story. When Randall realizes he'll never learn more from Kennaday, he turns in a prepared report to the police, trying to connect Baby Doe and the murders. VERDICT The author of the Ryan DeMarco books immerses himself in a conspiracy-theory mystery that combines true crime, UFOs, and sex cults. For fans of Silvis.--Lesa Holstine

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2022
He never got that bit about, "It's the journey, not the destination," a character announces near the halfway mark in this novel. "Why go somewhere if you're not really going somewhere?" It's a good way to approach this mind-wrench of a book. Silvis is the author of the Ryan DeMarco mysteries, yet when we meet him here as a character in his own narrative, he's written out. Then a stranger tells him of gruesome murders and an abandoned infant nearby. Might this be the spark to get him back to his keyboard? Inquiries begin, and here readers must be prepared for an extended series of asides. Some are affecting, like the account of John Steinbeck's last years, and some are grade-A wackadoodle: JFK and RFK were likely murdered by the CIA, and aliens may be secretly collaborating with earthling politicians. Then come pedophile rings--their numbers boasting one-percenters and members of the Hollywood elite--along with vertical time travel and magical medallions. Still, Silvis writes beautifully, making these dips entertaining, He spins what he calls accurately, "pretty sentences." Well, maybe it is the journey.

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