An Ancient Battle

What evil lurks in New Hampshire’s Lake Loon? Move over, Stephen King” — that’s what one reviewers said about Walt Schnabel’s recently released book, “Blood Club” [Surry Cottage Books, $14.99]. High praise, especially since the book is his first. Indeed, Schnabel does have a King-ish way of building suspense and keeping the story line unpredictable. The Dublin resident spins a well-written tale that jolts you from the familiar world of small-town New Hampshire into the strange (occasionally over-the-top strange) world of serpent descendants of the Annu, Irish priestesses, a bird god and Chief Crazy Horse’s power club.The action centers around a society that meets in a lodge at Lake Loon, which was long ago cursed by a murdered Abenaki medicine man. At the center of the tale are Brian Barrett, his wife Sarah and his young son, each special in their own way and therefore of interest to those with evil intent. Not to give too much away, but one of them won’t survive. As it says on the book’s cover, “Membership has its price.”— Barbara Coles