Stuff I Read: Ink by Jonathan Maberry

A town with a reputation for odd supernatural events and other freaky s**t becomes a hunting ground for a terrifying new breed of evil. A grizzled police chief, a tattoo artist, and a bounty hunter are the last line of defense for the town of Pine Deep against a monster that steals your most sacred memories. Hold on to your butts. Jonathan Maberry addends his Pine Deep Trilogy with his 2020 horror thriller, Ink.

Ink by Jonathan Maberry

Ink brings readers back to the town of Pine Deep, Pennsylvania, where the locals have begun to cash in the reputation as Spookytown USA. It follows a tattoo artist by the name of Patty Cakes, who recently relocated from New York. Since an odd encounter with a customer, the tattoo on the back of her hand of her late daughter’s face has gradually faded, along with her memory of that little girl. She’s not alone; several of the people in town are losing tattoos as well as the important memories attached to them. Into this storm walks Monk Addison, Patty’s longtime friend and client. Monk is a bounty hunter following his friend to Pine Deep for a change of scenery, but when he arrives in town, he finds Patty has significantly mutilated what remains of her faded tattoo and doesn’t remember ever having a child. And in the quest to figure out why, they run afoul of the local police and a man with a ghastly power.

Ink sits in a funny space for me. I’m a fan of Jonathan Maberry (particularly his Joe Ledger books) but I tend to shy away from horror. I am that weirdo that believes in ghosts. I’m glad that my fandom won the battle. Ink is horror that doesn’t rely on jump scares or general grotesquerie to be genuinely chilling. The villain, Owen Minor (AKA the Lord of the Flies), steals tattoos and memories with a touch, feeding on them like a vampire. The violation of having something as deeply personal (and in some cases, as integral to your personality) as that stolen is an unsubtle rape allegory, and it works like gangbusters. Owen is one of the creepiest characters I’ve ever encountered in any medium. I enjoyed Monk, the lead protagonist, as well. He seems to have a moral code similar to Joe Ledger, Maberry’s current bread-and-butter character. He’s a good detective as well, and that makes it fun to be in his head and easy to root for. Every character that comes onscreen seems well-drawn, and Pine Deep feels like a town so well lived in, you can easily imagine the day-to-day lives of characters you don’t see.

And that brings me to the downside. This is clearly a spin-off or continuation of Maberry’s famous Pine Deep Trilogy, and as such it’s incredibly self-referential. The lore of the town during the events of said trilogy is prominent, and there ate parts in the third act that don’t make a lick of sense if you haven’t read it (which I have not). However, it’s not so reliant on prior knowledge that you can’t follow along, and the main protagonist carries the viewpoint of the uninitiated almost by design. And while past events are referenced pretty frequently, only one detail is relevant to the story Maberry tells.

Jonathan Maberry’s return to his old (fictional) stomping grounds yields an intense horror/thriller with a uniquely creepy villain. However, without prior knowledge of Pine Deep from his earlier books, it’s easy to feel like the new kid dropped into a new school mid-year, trying to play catch up.

Pros: Great story, cool hero, cooler villain. Perfect Fall read.

Cons: Understanding the history of the setting helps to better understand characters that play important roles, especially in the 3rd act. Not really a stand-alone story

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars.