The Hollow Ones

Starred review from April 6, 2020
This horrifying series launch from Del Toro and Hogan (the Strain trilogy) introduces occult investigator John Blackwood, who maintains a mailbox in Manhattan’s financial district, the repository for desperate requests for help. When FBI agent Odessa Hardwicke and her partner, Walt Leppo, visit the Montclair, N.J., home of a graft inquiry target, disgraced politician Cary Peters, the pair find him in the midst of a murderous rampage in which he fatally stabs his estranged wife and two sons. Walt manages to take a knife from Peters, but then the FBI agent inexplicably attacks Peters’s surviving child, a nine-year-old girl, stabbing her in the shoulder before Odessa shoots him dead. Afterward, she thinks she sees some presence leave Walt’s corpse. The traumatized Odessa, after being placed on restricted duty, takes a retired agent’s suggestion to write Blackwood for help understanding what she thought she saw. Blackwood responds, revealing that Walt was possessed by a violent supernatural entity known as a Hollow One, and the two set out to catch it before it can kill again. The authors keep the tension high throughout. Fans of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Pendergast books will be enthralled. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment.

April 15, 2020
A rookie FBI agent stumbles into a supernatural mystery when a series of murders erupts in New York, starting with her partner. Hogan and del Toro have an exceptional track record with supernatural thrillers--see The Strain Trilogy (2009-2011)--so this new series starring a novice FBI agent and a classic occult detective is a welcome gift to disciples of Lovecraft-ian fiction. Odessa Hardwicke is cast in the mold of Clarice Starling, a tough but self-doubting FBI agent still finding her way. She and her jaded partner, Walt Leppo, are first on the scene when a disgraced politician slays his wife and children. In the midst of this gruesome scene, Leppo unexpectedly and abruptly stabs the surviving child, forcing Odessa to shoot him dead, glimpsing a weird specter departing as he breathes his last. The narrative then jumps from the modern day to the Mississippi Delta circa 1962, where African American FBI agent Earl Solomon is on the trail of someone lynching white victims. Intertwined between these storylines is the origin story of our other primary character, John Blackwood, a seemingly immortal investigator modeled after Algernon Blackwood's John Silence. These disparate threads converge as Odessa, unjustly exiled from the FBI, connects with a dying Solomon, who gives her insight into his odd fellowship with Blackwood. After Odessa delivers an appeal to a cryptic mailbox in Manhattan, Blackwood suddenly materializes, a gaunt, erudite, and awkward consort cursed to chase down a specific breed of evil in this world. The body count rises with a massacre on Long Island while Blackwood teaches Odessa about a twisted cult dating back to Mesopotamian times that affords a select few souls, the titular Hollow Ones, the ability to jump between bodies and find ecstasy in their host's violent death. Readers of occult fiction from Poe to Richard Kadrey will instantly recognize the creepy vibes and likely enjoy the ride. An inventive and macabre new spin on malevolent body snatchers.

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May 15, 2020
Del Toro and Hogan (The Strain, 2009) pay homage to the occult detective stories of Algernon Blackwood while offering an original speculative thriller for today. FBI agent Odessa Hardwicke's life and career are upended when her partner goes mad during a raid, forcing her to kill him. She observes something shadowy leaving his body as he dies, and her quest for answers leads her to aging colleague Solomon, a civil rights-era case, and the immortal detective John Blackwood, who has spent the last 500 years chasing the ancient, evil Hollow Ones. A shifting time frame fills in the backstories of Silence, Solomon, and even the Hollow Ones while also generating palpable suspense. The details of this compellingly paced novel allow readers to become wholly invested in the story's well-crafted sense of dread and in the odd-couple pairing of Hardwicke and Blackwood. A great choice for fans of popular speculative investigative series like those of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's Agent Pendergast and Christopher Golden's Ben Walker and for fans of occult thrillers, like T. Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones (2019), that nod to past horror masters.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)