The Unhallowed Horseman by Jude S. Walko

 

In a town enamored with its Unhallowed Horseman legend, a distraught teenage boy must come to terms with his personal demons, and perhaps the Horseman himself.
Set on All Hallows’ Eve, psychological thriller The Unhallowed Horseman takes place against the backdrop of a seemingly peaceful, picturesque American small town with an iconic past. The story follows Vincent, a distraught and troubled high schooler, and his descent into the demons that plague his mind.
Some things about the town and its inhabitants aren’t quite as they seem. Generations of families have been living there with a deep and dark secret, one on the verge of reincarnating itself once again.
With the help of his newfound love for classmate Lorraine, Vincent navigates the treacherous obstacles in his life. Whether it be the overbearing no-holds-barred sheriff, his tempestuous mother, or the holier-than-thou townsfolk, Vincent seems to be under constant bombardment from prying eyes. What's more, Lorraine's overprotective father, Deputy Constance, suspects Vincent of having committed some heinous crimes. 
Only after uncovering the town's history does Vincent begin to unravel its complex mystery and that of the people living there, including his own ancestors. Can he solve the mystery in time to save the people he truly loves, or will he, like others before him, fall prey to an age-old curse passed down through the centuries. The town prepares for the return of a killer legend, while one young man prepares to take on his innermost demons.
The Unhallowed Horseman is a contemporary reimagining based on characters in the American classic "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, the Father of American Literature.

Content Warning: adult and derogatory language, gore, substance abuse (drugs and alcohol), uncomfortable sexual situations (one is non-consensual assault), death, child abuse, mention of pedophilic tendencies, mention of suicide 

The Unhallowed Horseman gets off to a slow start as there are a multitude of characters to introduce. There is Vincent, a troubled teen with various mental problems, his mother Marisa who has a constant string of boyfriends barely older than her son, and maybe I should even mention her breasts since they make so many appearances in the first half of the book as to be two of the main characters. There is the perverted sheriff and pedo video store owner, there are bullies and a high school that boasts not a school counselor or psychologist but an actual psychiatrist who dispenses habit forming psychotropic drugs for free. Vincent takes pills by the handful and we are not sure at first if he is having drug induced hallucinations when he first sees the horseman or if his mental problems are the cause or if the horseman is real.
The town itself seems rather bleak, a place of neglect, abuse, and poverty. Sleepy Hollow has become a place of sex and drugs and cornstalks. Neither a nice place to live or to visit.

The pace picks up towards the middle of the story and so does the body count. I was not really able to connect with any of the characters so I may have enjoyed their deaths more than I was meant to.

This is the author's first novel and I look forward to seeing how his writing skills continue to develop in future.

3 out of 5 stars

My Thanks to Jude S. Walko for the review copy.

About the author

Jude S. Walko is a film producer (Producers Guild of America), director, screenwriter, and actor (Screen Actors Guild). Among notable works is his 2018 award-winning film The Incantation, which stars former Superman Dean Cain. Walko won the 2018 Eclipse award for Best Direction, among several other awards, for the film.
Jude has been a lifelong fan of classic literature and has a special love of all things Washington Irving. He even owns a grave plot at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in New York. Jude is passionate about Halloween, Tim Burton, stop motion animation and all things dark and mysterious.
He spends his time between Los Angeles and Thailand, where his family now resides, and has multiple film and writing projects in development.