Cynthia Lott’s The Feathers is wicked wind in a literary vessel, violence with reason, exquisite terror in 1970’s New Orleans, masqueraded as a settled score from a century hence. Written in a fluid march of verse and prose, The Feathers transforms our ideas of horror, and spins us to such evil, the next page is turned with baited breath, but make no mistake, you will turn that page, you must. What astounding stage is set, what purpose to the kill, what rich and deliberate relationship between characters in their obsessive quest to unfold clues and discovery. Go with them as they find feathers at the scenes of each grisly murder. You will know the local cops intimately, you’ll desire their desires; know their loves, their losses, their anguish, and you will know them well. Nestled within the framework of fear, is faith, music, dance, religion and southern culture. This is a must read, and to those who think they have read it all, opened their imaginations to terror and fright, you haven’t seen a thing until you open the binding to this book and get acquainted with a little girl and her family, a dancer and his passions, an artist and her sketches, and more, all somehow transfixed by an elegant man in a mask ~ meet Thomas Carpenter; see his masks, understand his intent, his evil, and just try to recognize purpose in his deeds, and you will be transported to the agony of his experience; you will understand the virtues of his quest for vengeance through seduction and murder. This is no safe read, nothing to coddle your comfort zones; get ready, take hold, grab a hand and keep the lights on, you are in for a ride unlike any you’ve ever experienced.