Floaters by Kelli Owen
CreateSpace (July 2016)
270 pages; $10.99 paperback; $4.99 e-book
Reviewed by Frank Michaels Errington
Two quotes at the start of Floaters set the tone perfectly for the story which follows:
America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil. Before the settlers, before the Indians…The evil was there…Waiting. — William S. Burroughs
Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful. — Mary Shelly, Frankenstein
Kelli Owen’s new book starts out looking like a police procedural involving flood waters causing a riverside graveyard to lose a number of its residents, including several Native Americans. It’s all fairly straightforward, until BAM…tentacles.
In the words of Detective Carly Greene, “Old Indian legends and myths and monsters and—oh my god, I need a drink.”
They say the devil is in the details, and Kelli has provided plenty to chew on in Floaters. There’s the strained relationship between Detective Greene and Parker, a reporter for the Evening Telegraph, masterfully addressed, not forced, but allowed to come through naturally in Kelli’s writing. Another gem of a character in the story is Granny Two Fingers, the matriarchal leader Detective Greene is working with to decide what to do with the bodies belonging to the tribe.
In her post-story notes, Kelli Owen mentions that much of Floaters is based on facts. Floaters are real, as is the story of the graveyard releasing a number of bodies when flood waters rose, but the rest is the work of an overactive imagination.
Floaters is available in both paperback and e-book formats.
Recommended.
