Okay, let’s front-foot things: if you’re a mystery lover who only reads bloodless cosies and can’t handle stark violence laid out on the page, you may struggle with this poetically brutal novel from Texas storyteller Gabino Iglesias. If however you like serial killer thrillers, rural noir, and crime that veers towards horror, you’re in for something brilliant.

The Devil Takes You Home is the harrowing tale of Mario, an office worker and father spiralling downwards following his beloved young daughter’s cancer diagnosis. Strangled by a profiteering US healthcare system, bad decays to worse, and Mario finds himself taking up a job offer from Brian, an old insurance company colleague turned junkie. There’s money at the end of a gun. Mario is a hitman who goes from desperately reluctant to enjoying the violence he inflicts on bad men. But is he purging his rage at God and circumstance, or stoking it? Then, the offer of a near-suicidal mission with a life-changing payoff: hijack a cartel cash shipment before it crosses back to Mexico.

Iglesias deftly straddles crime and horror in a page-chewing tale of a desperate man on a nightmarish journey. This is a confronting novel: the racism, poverty, and injustice of modern America as much as some nasty events.

Unforgettable characters entwined with despair, revenge, extreme religious beliefs, and monsters imagined and real.

Excellent!

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson