Into the Fire

Featured this week on the CFBA Blog Tour is Mike Dellosso’s first novel The Hunted, a supernatural suspense story similar (but not exactly) in theme to Peretti’s The Oath or Robert Whitlow’s The List. Mike Dellosso’s writing credentials include stints as a newspaper correspondent and columnist along with contributions to various websites and blogs. He has a BA from Messiah College and a MBS in theology from Master’s Graduate School of Divinity.

He’s in the process of defeating cancer, and he’s very candid about his struggle with stuttering. He’s a husband and father of three daughters, the author of two novels, the second one Scream to be released in early 2009. He began to write The Hunted in 2005.

There is no doubt Mike can write, and that he can write suspense which could graduate to the thriller genre. While I enjoyed The Hunted, I confess it had “that new author feel” to it.

The protagonist, Joe Saunders, reluctantly returns to the rural Pennsylvania town of his youth when his brother’s widow calls to tell him his nephew Caleb is missing after a day of playing with his friends. Joe has carried the guilt of his brother’s death for several long years, blaming God for allowing his beloved brother to die when it should’ve been him. The one real love in his life is now the sheriff of his small hometown, she being the one he left to join the military and never returned to as he had promised to do. It’s apparent from the first time they meet in the search for Caleb that the spark still exists between them.

As certain townspeople are summoned for the search, Joe’s former love, now-Sheriff Maggie Gill, sends Joe out to the fabled charred remains of the Yate’s place where Caleb liked to hide from his friends. An eerie experience in the dark cellar of the burned down home leads Joe to find Caleb who has been badly injured and remains in a coma after surgical repairs to his mangled body.

After realizing the strangeness of Caleb’s startling wounds, a Rottweiler and other townspeople begin to die at the paws of what appears to be a lion. Woven within the speculations of what exactly this man-killer might be is a paranoid schizophrenic/demonically possessed character by the name of Stevie Bauer who is somehow involved in the creature’s choice of victims.

The secret legacy behind the Gill family’s enduring stint in law enforcement causes Maggie to participate in cover-ups and lies to Joe who is slowly piecing together the mystery of this gruesome killing machine which no one can effectively identify, let alone capture or kill. Combined with the strange new occurrences experienced by the comatose Caleb is the new friendship forged with the elderly widower Josiah, necessitated by increasing speculation that Chief Maggie knows more about the killings than she’s reporting.

While I can certainly miss some level of symbolism in my reading, I am usually looking for it, and I’m always looking for it in the spiritual sense, so when I give my concerns about what I felt was lacking in this first effort by Mike Dellosso, you might disagree.

**Spoiler Alert**

These are the inconclusive loose ends which, for me, gave this story that “first novel feel”:

1.I don’t think the author fully resolved whether or not this creature was merely physical or supernatural. If he did, he wasn’t able to communicate it effectively. You can kill the physical body of a possessed animal, but you can’t kill the demon itself.

2.Caleb’s attack is questionable and not fully understood. The dynamic/relationship between the cellar of the hellish Yates’ place and the killer wavers.

3.Josiah is a spiritual character who has visions and prophetic dreams yet he is unable to figure out the demonic overtones of Stevie even though he has cared for him since Stevie’s mother was murdered.

4.The relationship/connection between Stevie’s pet cat, the killer “cat”, and Stevie “as a cat” is dangling at the end and also unresolved.

5.Paranoid schizophrenia is one thing. Demon possession is yet another. I think there needs to be a resolution here as to what is truly going on with the character Stevie.

**End Spoiler Alert**

As with most of us, I’m sure Mike’s second novel will be more resolute. Like I said, he has talent, imagination, and his own voice, although I think he might have included a few too many movie references which ended up sounding slightly cliché plus some ambitious plot points without bringing them to a satisfactory conclusion in his first entertaining adventure.

Father, I pray for complete healing for Mike from any residual cancer or symptoms. I ask, Lord, that you give him a long life, a healthy body, and a determination to serve you however you ask him to do so. I pray that you would give him renewed hope and purpose and many, many stories to follow. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.

*Please remember to pray for Kristy Dykes and her family.*