Review: Rites of Azathoth

Rites of Azathoth by Frank Cavallo
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Review of THE RITES OF AZATHOTH
by Frank Cavallo

THE RITES OF AZATHOTH is an exceptional and outstanding horror/mystery/thriller which can proudly take its place in the Lovecraftian Mythos as a fine work of fiction. Riveting, intriguing, and terrifying, the novel speeds us along as an FBI profiler, highly intelligent but morally ambiguous, agrees to field work after a lapse of several years. The case to which her Assistant Director assigns her is one so strange and farfetched that no one in law enforcement can comprehend or encapsulate it. A confessed killer of the mid-1970's has bee incarcerated for forty years. The man is blind. He disappears from his cell in the Federal Penitentiary in Ohio. He kills without leaving traces, and without touching the victim. He insists all he does is “at the command of Azathoth.” Arrayed in opposition to him are not only local law enforcement and the FBI, but also a highly organized, highly powerful, very wealthy secret group, The Disciples of the Black Fame. They are awaiting the Convergence, a date “when the stars are right,” to summon Yog-Sothoth to open the gate and allow the return of the extra-dimensional Outer Gods.

If this summary sounds Lovecraftian, it does so for good reason. I have to think that HPL himself would approve! Certainly I find this novel utterly delightful—and very terrifying.

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