Jinn » (REV)

Matthew B. J. Delaney is a recent graduate of Dartmouth College. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. This is his first novel.

It is May 1943. On the remote island of Bougainville, in the South Pacific, a squad of United States Marines beats their way through the thick jungle. They’ve landed to do battle with the Japanese soldiers on the island, but in short order, they begin to realize that the forbidding battleground holds an ancient secret a hundred times more terrifying than any enemy army—-especially when they start finding the bodies.

Flash-forward to July 2008. In the slums—-and the skyscrapers—-of Boston, a new kind of depraved serial killer is stalking human prey and terrifying the city. The bodies have been found posed and mutilated in bizarre ways that the two police officers in charge of the case have never seen before—-and never want to see again. Are the two scenarios connected?

Detectives Jefferson and Brogan have no idea that to solve the biggest case of their careers, their investigation must take them around the world and through time and history—-from a mysterious salvaged submarine with a shocking secret, to an inhumane prison where the inmates are even more scared than usual of “the Pit,”and finally back to the beginning: the sinister island in the South Seas where something inhuman has been biding its time

Publishers Weekly

Saving Private Ryan meets Alien in Delaney's tense and involving first novel, a hybrid that transcends its several genres. In the deadly jungles of the Pacific Theatre in 1943, young Private Eric Davis sees something "long and squirming" burst out of the stomach of a dead soldier. Davis is picked up by a ship, the Gallo, which is promptly shelled and sent to the bottom. Flash forward to the year 2007: Pierre Devereaux, a Jacques Cousteau type, is directing an undersea documentary when he discovers the wreck of the Gallo. Not surprisingly, Devereaux's assistants are horrified when they see Davis's corpse banging its head insistently against the window of their sub. A year after the Gallo is brought back to Boston, a series of murders begins to plague the city. In their hunt for the killer, Det. Will Jefferson and his partners Brogan and Watson gradually realize they are up against something both inhuman and amazingly old, with incredible will and enormous power. Delaney knows how to generate chills and suspense like few other new authors in recent memory. A page-turner if ever there was one, this mystery-horror thriller (with a soup on of SF) achieves a wholly convincing aura of terrifying antiquity. (Feb. 28) Forecast: With the book already optioned by Touchstone Pictures, this one is sure to generate a lot of buzz and sales. Obviously, the jinn is out of the bottle. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.