ARTVOICE REVIEW
Personal Demons
By Gregory Lamberson
Broken Umbrella Press, 2005
Despite its dismissal by "serious" writers and critics, genre writing is an elemental, sizeable, and enjoyable part of the publishing industry. With their emphasis on storytelling, genre novels are intended to rouse specific emotions in readers. Mysteries involve the reader in a puzzle. Science fiction lights the path of a speculative "What if?" Horror inspires fear. Cross-pollination of genres is a risky business. Occasionally, however, mixing genres works in unexpectedly engaging ways. So it is with Gregory Lamberson's Personal Demons. What begins as a mystery moves from the procedural emphasis of Ed McBain to the grisly psychopathology of Thomas Harris, then turns the corner into Isaac Asimov and Michael Cricton territory before speeding along Peter Straub Street to William Peter Blatty Boulevard.
NYPD homicide detective Jake Helman is on the trail of the Cipher, an enigmatic serial killer who leaves no clues behind. Forced by unexpected circumstances to leave his job, he takes a security position with the Tower, a highly secretive and secure genetic engineering facility owned by Howard Hughes-like recluse Nicholas Tower. Soon he finds an unexpected connection between the Cipher and the Enron-style ethics of his new employer. For Jake, a deeply flawed man, the ordinary world—where serial killers must be pursued—is slowly peeled away, each vanishing layer of life leaving him that much closer to Hell, both figuratively and literally.
Like Roman Polanski, Lamberson understands that true horror doesn't spring from a coffin like Max Schreck in Nosferatu but from the depths of mundane desires, curiosities and fears, often in broad daylight. In Personal Demons he has crafted a tale that explores murder, madness, and myth and, ultimately, takes us back to a common source for all three. It is a story well told.