Visions Through a Glass, Darkly - David I. Aboulafia

                This is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read but that can be said about most psychological horror novels. Every time I wanted to put the book down and give up on it, something would happen that would pull me back in. The book starts with the main character, blood on his hands, counting the minutes on the clock because he has four minutes left to live. How could this not pull a reader in? Then the book moves back in time and, after much slow going, the story takes shape. Eventually the reader finds out that the main character is Richard Goodman and he gets messages from the dead. The author doesn’t make this obvious. In fact, much of the storyline isn’t obvious. The reader really has to stick with the story and search things out. It isn’t the easiest book to read but overall it has an interesting story. Richard isn’t particularly likeable but even he admits that fact. The clients of the school for the disabled that he works at are varied and interesting. There’s a funny exchange between Ricky and a client who can’t walk that involved amusing banter about Richard being able to walk and the client being crippled. There is humor like this throughout the book but in a subtle and, at times, off-color way. There’s also some blood and gore, pretty disgusting at some points but not a whole lot of it. This book is more about the horrors of the mind. I read this book in a digital format and it worked well. The cover is quite stark in color but still draws the eye.