Purgatory's Gate

by Raymond van Over

A dead young woman. A mysterious cult. A murdered best friend.
A menacing evil. A trio of bloody killings. Religious fanatics on the loose. A black mass of ritual be-headings. A satanic madness rules all.

After healthy young Debra Miller dies giving birth, guilt-ridden Dr. David Monroe's secret investigation yields the discovery of a truth too horrifying to believe: a bloodthirsty satanic cult is preparing the way for the Anti-Christ.

Our deepest, darkest dreams of hell on earth are about to become reality. With the help of a disillusioned priest, Monroe has to confront the battle between good and evil that lurks in the human mind. To find those who are committed to do anything, no matter how ruthless, to fulfill their fanatic religious beliefs...before his blood is sacrificed next.

Enter Purgatory's Gate and discover a world where madness and violence reign.

Genres: Horror

336 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 27, 2007

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping for more here, given van Over wrote Whisper back in the day, which excelled. Purgatory's Gate, published a few decades later (2007) simply fell into the cliché land of Christian horror and while the cover blurb compares it to The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby would be more apt. Our protagonist, Dr. David Monroe, works in New England at a hospital in Vermont in OB. The tale starts with him working late and performing an emergency C-section; the baby lived, but the mother died shortly thereafter. She seemed healthy enough, so what gives?

Well, David has some blood work done on her and finds some rather strange results; only a fraction of red blood cells than normal and some other anomalies. He takes some time off to dig into the mystery and finds nada. Finally, he and his buddy hack the NIH's records and discover that something similar happened 11 times before, on exactly the same date, but all across the nation. Finally, they also discover that every doctor who performed the surgery died exactly a year after that! Does David only have a year to live? What could be behind this?

The rear cover has spoilers galore, but I will not go beyond that. It seems some sort of sinister conspiracy is afoot, with some evil cult using blood rites to open some gates to Hell. Add in an old Irish priest and some dubious cops and van Over takes it from there. Purgatory's Gate did have some good spooky moments, but the at times didactic prose and dubious decisions of characters (seemingly just to move the plot) got old pretty quick. The denouement? Made me round this down to two stars. 2.5 tropey stars.

[Wendy Peoples Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

great for having around during those times you have to wait in line and need a traditional horror/satanic scary story to get you through.

[Dora Al · Rating 5 out of 5]

love it !