Gabino Iglesias delivers a propulsive supernatural thriller, House of Bone and Rain, set in San Juan on his native island of Puerto Rico, where the inequities are many: "the thing about Puerto Rico, especially if you're poor, is that there's a lot going on--death, drugs, gangs, violence--so you either grow up quickly or you don't get to grow up at all." Iglesias (The Devil Takes You Home; Zero Saints) introduces a quintet of do-or-die buddies since fourth grade: impulsive Bimbo, surfer Tavo, moody Paul, methodical Xavier, and most-of-the-time-narrator Gabe. They're "Brothers, really... like the tight-knit group of kids in a Stephen King novel, except with three brown dudes and two Black ones running around and getting in trouble."
On the last day of high school classes, Bimbo's mother, Maria, is gunned down while working at the door of the Lazer Club. Bimbo vows revenge at her open casket. The rest pledge their cooperation to kill her killers, to "make this right." Brutality and blood beget confessions that reveal an untouchable drug lord is involved. Bimbo's determination only multiplies: Maria's "death had turned her into something else, a glue that held us together." The destructive deluge of Hurricane Maria--"the Big One"--further underscores Bimbo's vicious rampage.
Corpses, clairvoyants, traitors--and specters with gills!--populate Iglesias's vengeful frightfest. He writes with a steely resignation, mirroring his characters' youthful tunnel-vision. He bestows only Gabe with first-person autonomy, and although Gabe's chapters are occasionally interrupted, additional viewpoints can only temporarily distract from--and perhaps warn against--fatal reckonings. In the end, "all stories are ghost stories." Let the haunting begin. --Terry Hong