Review: The Shimmer by David Morrell

Dan Page, a police officer, comes home one afternoon to find his wife is gone, leaving behind a note that simply says, “gone to see my mother”. But Dan’s mother-in-law claims to know nothing about a visit and his wife, Tori isn’t there either. Dan puts out a missing persons bulletin and tracks Tori down to a small town in Texas. Rostov, Texas attracts hundreds of visitors each year to watch the mysterious “Rostov lights”, which appear like dancing glowing orbs. Not everyone can see the lights, but those who can are drawn to them and compelled to visit this tiny town.

A gunman arrives one evening and begins to scream, “Go back to hell where you belong” at the lights, and then turns his weapon on crowds of people watching the lights. More people are drawn to Rostov because of the massacre, TV cameras abound and the stage is set for even more bloody confrontations.

The Shimmer by David Morrell is based on Morrell’s interest in a similar phenomenon just outside of the little bitty town of Marfa, Texas. Morrell came across an article in 2004, a sort of “fluff” piece about the Marfa lights, and while reading up on them discovered that Marfa was also the location used in filming the movie Giant, with James Dean. Only David Morrell could take these two little unrelated bits of trivia, do some research, find stuff linking them together and then write a suspense thriller like this! Sort of like a Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, but without the Bacon. (*snicker, snicker….)(hey...stop rolling your eyes...)

Cops, wives, ambitious reporters, unexplained phenomenon, creepy manipulative military guys in Humvees, and research scientists; this book manages to tie all these weird, disparate threads together and forms a well-told and wonderfully inventive story.

The Shimmer hits the bookstores today, July 7. Go git yerself a copy….it’s good….

My rating: