Book Review
Title: Hellraiser: The Toll (Hellraiser Book 2) by Mark Alan Miller
Genre: Paranormal, Horror
Rating: 5 Stars
Hellraiser: The Toll is another short novella although not solely written by Clive Barker to bring the gap between The Hellbound Heart and The Scarlet Gospels and I couldn’t wait to get into it as it is following Kirsty after she escaped from the Hell Priest, Pinhead. We are first introduced to the prison island called Guiana which later became known as the Ile du Diable: the Devil’s Island due to the horrific things that happened there and how a man called Lemarchand was imprisoned there despite being born hundreds of years before. It was rumoured he made deals the Devil to be immortal and in return he would craft doorways to Hell for unsuspecting victims which have become known as Lament Configurations. We are then introduced to Christina Fidanza which is the new identity of Kirsty Cotton after the events of the Hellbound Heart where she witnessed the death of her father before sending her uncle back to the Cenobites which he escaped with her step-mother’s help.
For the past thirty years Kirsty has been running for the Cenobites as the Hell Priest commonly called Pinhead refuses to let her escape him even after all this time. Through her travels she has managed to learn that the Lament Configurations are a doorway to the Wastes, where the labyrinth of the Cenobites stands and they want her back now. She ends up receiving a mysterious letter from a Doctor of Theology who has discovered what the Cenobites are without solving a Lament Configuration and he knows that something huge is about to go down and the only person who can stop it is her. Kirsty who after speaking with the Doctor knows she has to travel to the Devil’s Island where Pinhead is waiting for her and she does especially after seeing how strong the Hell Priest’s influence of her own world has become but she is haunted by memories the entire journey and before she has even unpacked her things she is getting ready to face down the Hell Priest once and for all.
She learns of a house on the island which is an ode to the Lament Configuration and within she finds a door that she is sure leads to the Wastes and the Hell Priest beyond but Pinhead is there waiting for her. He explains when she passes through to the Wastes that he is getting ready to Ascend and he needs two witnesses and he choose the two people that have managed to escape from him. He wants Kirsty to be his witness on Earth and a New York detective named Harry D’Amour is going to be his witness from below. In one final act of defiance Kirsty turns on the Hell Priest and manages to escape once more but she still isn’t safe. She hears of Pinhead’s growing influence and how more of the Cenobites are being spotted in her world and she remembers that Pinhead told her that he had fathered a daughter on Earth and Kirsty begins tracking her down. She succeeds and the novel ends with Kirsty preparing to meet Pinhead’s daughter as the race to the Ascension begins. From what I know of The Scarlet Gospels we are going to be following Harry and learning more about him and how he came to know the Cenobites particularly the Hell Priest and how he escaped from them and hopefully we will see the final showdown between Kirsty and the Hell Priest. Overall, Hellraiser: The Toll was a nice bridge between the original novella and the full length novel that I am going to be reading next.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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