Origin by J.A. Konrath

This is a great book, one of those books I’ve actually read a few times now. It’s about a top secret team put together by the government, and their studies of a creature that fits the classic description of a demon, or Lucifer himself (red skin, horns, sharp needle teeth).

This is the only book I’ve read by Konrath, so I can’t compare this work to his others. But here, he has a great ability to describe characters and give insight while other things are going on. Everything is always moving, the pacing is great. Even a simple “bandaging wounds” type scene reveals a lot about two characters. The characters themselves are interesting, and definitely varied. There were definitely some surprises too, as I thought I knew how some characters would turn out, and was completely wrong.

Besides the great suspense, I was also surprised at how Konrath handled the differences in character viewpoints. One of the themes throughout the novel is basically faith versus science, even faith versus faith. Characters on both sides of the subtle conflict (and sometimes not so subtle) were handled with care respect, there was no “victor” or character painted in a bad light.

For horror and paranormal fans, definitely check out Origin.