Alma Katsu has one of the most unique pedigrees of writers working today, having spent 35 years as a senior intelligence analyst for such agencies as the CIA and NSA. She has exhibited her knowledge of these areas in the espionage novels RED WIDOW and RED LONDON. However, considering that it is Halloween season, I prefer it when she displays her talent for horror that earned her a Bram Stoker Award nomination for THE HUNGER.

FIEND, Katsu’s latest horror novel, details the behind-the-scenes drama of the wealthy Berisha family, who has benefited from a lifetime of supernatural luck that often intervenes when their opponents threaten them. Zef is the patriarch and runs one of the world’s largest import-export firms. His three children are being groomed as successors to this mantle, with eldest child and only son Dardan being next in line. Middle child Maris is the book's primary focus, and she has an interesting relationship with the Berisha males. Through flashbacks, we get to see how their relationships have been formed, in addition to the otherworldly being that occasionally plays a hand in their success.

"The novel is devilish and surprising, and Alma Katsu has no reservations about taking things as far as she can to tell a story about power, obsession and the demonic forces behind them."

Maris has begun to question things more and more, especially the high number of natural disasters, strokes, heart attacks and other tragic incidents that always seem to befall their business adversaries when the Berishas most need it. The New York City building in which the family grew up always frightened Maris as a child, and the doorman had once told her about the murders reported to have happened there. The reader will be able to put together the existence of a supernatural being long before Maris does, possibly because she has been in a long-term case of denial. However, recent events with the business have forced her to look backwards and explore.

The last straw for Maris is the sudden suicide of a whistleblower the night before he was set to testify against the Berishas. As far as Maris is concerned, she cares about being the custodian of the family legacy more than she wants justice for these actions, which means that Dardan is all that stands in the way of this role. Dardan is called to a top-secret meeting with Andy Garrison, who not only was a major business opponent of his family but also was the father of a school friend who died some years earlier, which Garrison blames on Zef. Garrison urges Dardan to see the truth behind Zef’s actions and escape the corrupt family legacy.

FIEND is as cutthroat as the corporate world, and that means anyone standing in the way of the Barishas --- or, more specifically, Maris --- is earmarked for doom. The novel is devilish and surprising, and Alma Katsu has no reservations about taking things as far as she can to tell a story about power, obsession and the demonic forces behind them.