Book Review: Prince of Darkness by Barbara Michaels

Peter Stewart, a reporter goes to Middleburg, Maryland after his younger brother's mysterious death that was labeled a suicide. The only witness was Kate More, a past lover of his brother and a writer of witchcraft and satanic folklore. Peter visits Middleburg under the guise of a writer doing research on cults, in an effort to get close to her and discover the truth about his brother's death.

Once there, Peters discovers that affluent Middleburg is not as nice and peaceful as it appears. He uncovers an old satanic cult in which his brother was involved. He also discovers a blackmail plot against Kate.

Peter becomes a bit too involved with the beautiful Tiphaine Blake, Kate's niece, which almost results in his demise. He must join forces with Kate and help comes from an unlikely source, as does the evil.

Let me start out by saying that this is not a horror story in which the evil turns out to be real. Rather, it is just a group of rich Satanists and one man involved only for the money. Prince of Darkness is a mystery and thriller.

Being written in 1969, much of the text is thin and much censoring is involved, which, I feel, takes away much of the sense of realism. It feels like an old 60s or 70s comic book. There is no cursing, little blood, and the sex scenes are only suggested. This book is great for goodie-two shoe types with no sense of imagination or realism.

The characters are all paper-thin shadows of real characters. None are really drawn out in any type of detail, so I didn't care for anyone. Prince of Darkness is like a harlequin romance novel but without the sex and with an occult spin.

The setting of Middleburg, Maryland is your standard witchcraft type location that immediately made me think, "Witches, yea, yawn." The plot giveaways begin with the setting and never end there. One character did fool me until halfway through but then I spotted it right away.

The pace is slow and I almost couldn't finish it without being put to sleep. I thought 352 pages would've been a quick read but it wasn't. I only kept on because I had nothing left to read.

The opening chapter is very misleading. I almost didn't read the book because of how boring it was. After reading the book, the opening feels like a cheap red herring that could've been deleted.

The ending is very boring and feels like a bad 70s satanic movie. The very ending left me feeling unsatisfied.

I don't recommend this book unless you like unrealistic plots, setting, and characters or enjoy watered-down, censored text from times long gone.

1/5