Review: Killing Down the Roman Line by Tim McGregor

                   Title: Killing Down the Roman Line

Author: Tim McGregor

Published: May 26, 2012

320 pages

Source: I received this from author for my honest review of it

Goodreads Summary:

You go back far enough, every family’s got blood on its hands.

Three miles down the Roman Line, you’ll find the old Corrigan house, empty for decades, the sight of an unspeakable crime that has been long forgotten. Until now, when a stranger rolls into town claiming to be a long lost Corrigan. 

Inviting the locals to a tour of the derelict property, the stranger regales the townsfolk with a gruesome tale of how his family was slaughtered by an armed mob. The murderers, he claims, were the ancestors of everyone assembled before him. 

Jeered as a fraud, the man’s claims are dismissed but doubts linger over what happened all those years ago. Dissent grows as the stranger agitates for retribution and long dead feuds reignite. Caught in the middle is Jim Hawkshaw, a struggling farmer living near the old house. As he digs for the truth, Jim is forced to choose sides when the locals decide to take matters into their own hands and punish the outsider for his lies. 

While the town prepares for its first heritage festival, a band of vigilantes march on the old Corrigan house to exact revenge but this time... this time the Corrigans are ready for them

My Feelings:

Wow!  This is one of those dark eerie mysteries that make you shudder even as you read it.  The past meets the present and it is creepy but very entertaining!

At first when I began reading, I thought this was going to be a ghost story; and in some ways it is, but not with the typical ghostly presence.  It is more a like the memories and the past is the ghost that haunts this town and these people.  

As I was reading it I felt this deep sense of foreboding (my heart speeds up like I am watching a scary movie-it's a great feeling, scary and tempting) especially when the character, Will Corrigan, shows up.  He is rich and happily destroying the townspeople's sense of self importance blasting what he calls the " Corrigan Horrorshow",where he shows the truth of what happened to his ancestors.

Alright I realize he is the antagonist in the novel and I am not in love with him, but I do think I can understand how he wants justice for his family.  Granted it was his family from 1898, but still.  There was probably another way of going about this but obviously that wouldn't have been as been as interesting as the story is told.   In fact, I think if some people in this story would have swallowed their pride and just let him have what he wanted( sorry I do not want to give anything away here) then perhaps things would have been different.  

I also didn't really see the townspeople or even Jim, for that matter, as the the innocent victims in this story.  I only felt like there were two people who really lost out in every way possible, Travis and his mom.  

Another thing that was pretty cool about this was that it is inspired by true events.  I don't know much about Canadian history and apparently, something like this really did happen, in 1898, that is.  In a way, that made it even more scary, proof that people really did do gruesome things and it wasn't someone's imagination.  

This is a great read with lots of things happening.  You will not get bored with this novel, it jumps in and instantly hooks you.  It is disturbing and it will make you think too.  

I have to give it four hearts!

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