Ink by Jonathan Maberry

Synopsis:

Tattoo-artist Patty Cakes has her dead daughter’s face tattooed on the back of her hand. Day by day it begins to fade, taking with it all of Patty’s memories of her daughter. All she’s left with is the certain knowledge she has forgotten her lost child. The awareness of that loss is tearing her apart.

Monk Addison is a private investigator whose skin is covered with the tattooed faces of murder victims. He is a predator who hunts for killers, and the ghosts of all of those dead people haunt his life. Some of those faces have begun to fade, too, destroying the very souls of the dead.

All through the town of Pine Deep people are having their most precious memories stolen. The monster seems to target the lonely, the disenfranchised, the people who need memories to anchor them to this world.

Something is out there. Something cruel and evil is feeding on the memories, erasing them from the hearts and minds of people like Patty and Monk and others.

Ink is the story of a few lonely, damaged people hunting for a memory thief. When all you have are memories, there is no greater horror than forgetting.

Edition:

E-ARC

Disclaimer:

I received a copy of The Blade Between from the publisher via Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger Warnings:

My Thoughts:

Memories shape who we are. So what happens if those pivotal moments in our lives start to disappear? Ink asks not only that, but what if, rather than fading gradually over time due to age or illness – what if they were ripped from us by an outside force? Lots of people get tattoos to memorialize lost loved ones or important, and often life-altering moments in their lives. Now imagine that tattoo began to fade – and as it faded, so too did your memory of the story behind it. I’ll tell you this: every single person in Ink who is besieged by the memory thief suffers unbelievably. Not all of them remember losing their tattoo(s) or their memories, but they all know they lost something that used to be extremely meaningful to them.

Honestly, I find this entire premise terrifying. It’s not bad enough when an important memory begins to fade, but also losing the physical totem you can use to help jog your memory? Unthinkable. I’ve known enough people in my life who have memory issues due to injury or illness to know that it is incredibly challenging for them, and often incredibly emotionally painful.

“NOT ALL CRIMES LOOK LIKE CRIMES (THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX).”

The biggest problem Ink’s protagonists run into is putting a stop to the thief. How do you find them? And once you do, how are you going to stop them? You can’t very well arrest someone on suspicion of memory stealing. But what else can you do when the thief can steal whatever he wants from you with just a touch? I mean, I suppose a sniper is as good an option as any, but is that really feasible? Sorry – I’m not going to start listing all of the possible solutions. I’ll stop at the one.

Like I mentioned before, this is a premise that truly scares me. I’ve lived a transient life – most of what I’ve got is my memories. I don’t have special places, I don’t have anybody I’ve known my whole life, I’m not tied to physical locations, etc. If I didn’t have my memories, I pretty much wouldn’t have existed until high school when I actually stayed in the same state for more than a year (although still quite a lot of cities – but some folks had cars at that point, so nbd). I just can’t imagine how awful it would be to have what little exists to make you feel like part of the world around you just ripped away.

This is an extremely complex sort of villainy in Ink, and Maberry did one hell of a job making it feel approachable. And he did it without making (me) the reader feel stupid or slow on the uptake. He took something unfathomably awful and somehow made it fun to read about.

About the Author:

JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-seller and Audible #1 bestseller, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, anthology editor, comic book writer, executive producer, magazine feature writer, playwright, and writing teacher/lecturer. He is the editor of WEIRD TALES Magazine and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. He is the recipient of the Inkpot Award, three Scribe Awards, and was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. His books have been sold to more than thirty countries. He writes in several genres including thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and mystery; and he writes for adults, middle grade, and young adult.

Rating:

Fast-paced, mildly terrifying, and tough to put down.

Ink
By Jonathan Maberry
St. Martin's Griffin
Published: November 17, 2020
ISBN: 9781250765888
E-book, Paperback, Audio
464 Pages
Author's Website