The Demonologist: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, March 2013: This supernatural thriller rises above its by-the-numbers plot to deliver a mix of creepy mood and engaging musings on good and evil. It’s still a light read despite author Andrew Pyper’s literary pretensions. The movie rights have been optioned, and the staging of some of the narrative seemed based more for big-screen bang than because it made sense. The story is told by David Ullman, a renowned Miltonian scholar whose knowledge of Paradise Lost draws him into a mystery in Venice that ultimately puts him in peril. Ullman has to fight both his internal demons and possibly some very real ones to save himself, his daughter, and maybe the whole world. Original? No. But The Demonologist still provides a bit of page-turning fun with some truly scary moments that had me shivering during a late-night read. --Aaron Knopf