The Piercing

The Piper Trilogy #2

by Helen McCabe

Secrets bring terror, and the result of terror lasts for a very long time. It doesn’t go away.’ American student Pip Durrant arrives in Romania to continue the research of the late Dr Marcu into the Transylvanian village of Arva, where a high incidence of mental illness amongst the women is coupled with a shocking history of ritual child rape and murder. But, once there, Pip finds his rational, scientific worldview being increasingly challenged by the seemingly supernatural horrors he encounters. What’s more, he soon realises that the mysteries surrounding the village seem to be somehow linked to traumatic events in his own troubled childhood. Could he really be falling prey to the timeless evil of the Pied Piper of Hamelin …? The Piercing is the long-awaited second book in acclaimed author Helen McCabe’s chilling Piper trilogy.

Unknown Binding

First published September 3, 2014

Reviews

[Linda Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, creepy, tense, a perfect 2nd part of this story. Can't wait for the third instalment. If I had a shelf marked 'unputdownable' this, along with Piper, would be near the top of the list. Thank you Helen...and for all the correspondence.

[Geoff Nelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ever since I was hoisted on my dad’s shoulders in 1949 to watch a Pied Piper procession in the German city of Hamelin and watched mouth open, the thousands of local children dressed in medieval garb following the flautist, I’ve been hooked on the legend. Hence Helen McCabe’s first in this trilogy meant something personal and I’ve hungered for its sequel, The Piercing.
So pleased was I to find the young, lame and mute Pip from book 1 has matured and found his voice here. Yet his past haunts him as his post-doc research is spuriously manipulated and people he interviews are ominously killed before too much information is revealed. Even so, Pip is persuaded to stay and find the missing jigsaw pieces in this intriguing puzzle. Whoever thought the paedophile Pied Piper was a simple legend, done and dusted is in for rude shock.
McCabe is a master of descriptive phrases. We always know where we are and how to feel about the setting. Usually that means dark and spooky, crafted with literary flair as in “a timid wind crept across the well-cut lawn and started to rattle the shutters, snivelling to be let in.” Marvellous. I’ve not been to Transylvania but now I can picture it where “A red-streaked dawn threaded itself through the night clouds, then flamed into life, illuminating the Carpathian mountains and turning their snowy heads into blood.” This is a murder mystery as well as an enquiry into the rapes and heinous practices of the evil Grandsire as he appears to reincarnates himself every 36 years since 1376.
As in real life much of the book is in dialogue between characters so real you could touch them. To my dismay I often witness real people live their lives keeping secrets only to be found out and then making excuses, digging their lying holes deeper. McCabe is brilliant at such dialogue as she was in Piper, and I love the obliqueness of it such as when Pip’s fibs are nearly uncovered such as when Ghita’s father introduces Pip as a history student when Ghita – unbeknown to her father – had met Pip and knew he was a psychologist and yet she played along with the lie. As another character says, “Secrets bring terror.”
I love the way McCabe paints the weather with human attributes. Surely we’ve all heard the wind’s wild laughter and beware the snow, dear readers, and bolt those window shutters when the flakes fall to stop its demons entering.
Aficionados of medieval and gothic legends will find The Piercing a gripping yarn worthy to sequel Piper.

[Sara Twigg · Rating 3 out of 5]

The ending was disappointing.