Hell's Half Acre

Hells Half Acre begins five years after the events in Penny Dreadful. Phineas Poe has been searching for Jude the entire time. He finds her in a San Francisco back alley scalping a man she just murdered. Poe recognizes the dead man and this brings on a series of flashbacks about Jude and his past times together, what they were doing, where they were, why they separated, and his extended search for her. These flashbacks are most prevalent during the first part of the book but also occur throughout.

Jude has hooked herself up with a powerful attorney, Miller, who seems to possess an unprecedented and uncanny amount of control over her. Jude brings Poe into the mix and along with a woman living with Miller, Molly, the four set out to make a movie. Not just any movie though, a snuff film with a twist, an existential snuff film.

Under Millers total control, supervision and direction all the participants will act out various scenes in which their identities, relationships and loyalties will all be called into question and severely tested. The entirety of the film is kept secret by Miller except for the ending, someone will die. The book culminates in the kidnapping of a gubernatorial candidate’s son.

The movie comes to a head in a botched convenience store robbery in which all of the participants are wearing masks of prominent pop culture icons. It’s also the single best scene in the book. It’s filled with sufficient peril and enough action to make one almost wish the book ended with it and didn't continue on.

Hells Half Acre is by far the weakest book in the trilogy. There are scenes that are supposed to be filled with terror or suspense or even dread, but they just don't inspire the intended feelings the way that they're supposed to. Here are a couple of examples:

-Early on there is an elevator scene that might be the biggest misstep of them all due to its inability to inspire any appropriate feelings of tension, claustrophobia or for that matter any feelings at all. Aside from just being flat it also suffers from comparisons to the climatic elevator scene at the end of the far superior
Penny Dreadful.

-There is a rape scene in the beginning of the book that SHOULD be fraught with certain levels of helplessness, peril and heartbreak just by the very nature of the act. Yet none of these emotions are present. This scene is also supposed to be a centerpiece of the novel, but as the heart of the story it doesn't hold up. Later on in the book there is a one sentence reference to the rape that contains far more dread then the actual event.

-There is a chase scene through public places with Poe following Miller before they have actually met. The scene climaxes with the two of them on a near empty subway train. Miller turns to Poe and looks him dead in the eye and says "Why are you following me"? It’s a genuinely scary and tense moment; it even ends a chapter so it serves as a great cliffhanger moment. Then the next chapter begins with Poe waxing philosophical and at great length about a sunset. Then after that aside Poe is now accompanying Miller to his home. The tension is gone as is all pretenses for caring what happens next due to the let down.

The extended highlight and perhaps biggest strength of the book is that we finally get to see some substantial character growth from Poe. By the last third of the book the reader barely recognizes him as the same guy who woke up in a bathtub of ice all those years ago. His primary concern is for the kidnapped child especially since he wasn't a part of the act. He becomes the de facto guardian angel for the child wanting only his safety even if it means forgoing his own. This puts Poe in a position that he's hardly been in before, someone to root for. This book is really about the growth of Poe and it’s nice to see him forming substance and become more real after the events of the past two books.

By far the weakest part of the book is the ending, especially the epilogue. The final act is limpid and uninspiring. Almost as if Baer said 'watch me juggle these 15 balls' and then wanted applause after catching 2 of them and dropping the rest. The epilogue is a dreadful reading experience that feels tacked on as if Baer felt the need to tie up all of his loose ends with one fail swoop. And what a trite swoop it is. For a sequence to be so dark and edgy at it core one has to wonder what Baer was thinking on this one.

Hells Half Acre has moments of excellence that are unfortunately out numbered by weaker moments, poor supporting character development and moments where you question the authors decision and motives. It should be read to see how the trilogy ends and to see how other themes are continually added to. Where as Kiss Me, Judas and Penny Dreadful deserve to be reread despite minor and only occasional missteps, the missteps in Hells Half Acre are egregious and it doesn't deserve to be reread except to cite references. What saves this book from a lower rating is the continuation of larger themes and allusions from the first two novels.

Miscellanea:

-The image shown above is that of the omnibus edition of the three Phineas Poe novels. The titles are available separately but this seems to be the most common edition these days.


-Brian Lindenmuth

Other Reviews of works by Will Christopher Baer

Penny Dreadful - Aug 25, 2006

Kiss Me, Judas - Aug 16, 2006