When I heard of the horror novel The Demonologist (2013) by Andrew Pyper, I immediately thought about Ed and Lorraine Warren and I got excited. In this novel, David Ullman, a professor at Columbia University and expert in the study of demonic literature, is chosen to make an observation for a secret client. An all-expenses-paid trip to Venice, Italy brings David in contact with a demon, who he refers to as the Unnamed. The Unnamed takes David’s daughter, Tess, and sends David back to the United States where he must figure out the demon’s name, so he can get Tess back. David goes on a wild goose hunt across the country where he is followed by an employee of the secret client, tormented by the Unnamed, which takes different forms, and he grows closer to his colleague and friend, O’Brien, who joins him on his journey. During his scavenger hunt, David realizes that what he thought was merely imagination is reality.
I like how the story kept my attention and had a good pace, especially with the action-packed scenes, but I did not find it very frightening. I found it to be more adventurous and fantastical than scary. I felt that the typical horror build up where the audience is set up for something spine-tingling terrifying was not there. However, the presence of the demon and how it took on human form several times throughout the story was a great horror element.
Pyper’s use of the references made from John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) throughout the story was very interesting. David, who is well-versed in this piece, quotes it, discusses it, and must use it in deciphering the clues left by the Unnamed. This tied everything together and made me think about the encounters between Jesus and Satan (and his demons) in the Bible. Several times a line from Paradise Lost is mentioned among David and the Unnamed where more insight is gained and allows David to get closer to solving the mystery which also turns him from a skeptic to a believer. In the Bible, for every time Satan tempted Jesus, Jesus had a word of truth in which to invalidate his enemy.
There were a few items that I felt did not work in this novel. During some of the lengthy dialogue parts, I found myself confused as to who was saying what. Though a major part of the story was David’s hunt for the demon’s name, I did not feel it was necessary to have him literally travel across the United States (approximately 7,000 miles) only to end up in Canada. For every state line crossed, hotel stay, meal, and mile driven, I was adding up how much it would have cost him. I will not give away the ending, but I did find it to be rather vague and almost left up to the reader’s interpretation/imagination. Overall, I would rate The Demonologist at a 3 out of 5 stars.
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