Victoria (Vic) McQueen exercises her keen imagination as she races along on her bike, pretending to be a powerful adventurer while escaping the confines of her tense home. One day, she discovers that she has a real magical ability: she can use her mind to create a temporary bridge to her wished-for destinations. Thus begins NOS4A2, a satisfying and absorbing horror novel by Joe Hill. The reader discovers that Vic is not the only one, however, with the power to link the real world to real or fantastical places. A vicious serial kidnapper has been using his own preternatural abilities to capture children and transport them via his antique car (the book’s title refers to its vanity plate number) to a nightmare amusement park of his own creation: Christmasland. En route, its new arrivals become transformed into obedient monsters, trapped forever in Charles Manx’s insane version of holiday cheer. The book describes in enthusiastic detail a climactic cat-and-mouse chase across the country between the forces of good and evil through macabre settings, real and imagined. Although almost 700 pages, the novel rushes by with frequent explicitly violent scenes, gritty characters and addictive non-stop action. NOS4A2 is well-crafted and skillfully plotted, a good pick for any horror or fantasy enthusiast.
