A Black and Endless Sky by Matthew Lyons is a gritty, frantic sojourn through a lot of dark territory. Filled with well-written hard-luck characters and some sharp writing, it’s the kind of novel that gets the attentive reader interested in the author as well as the novel.
In the wake of Jonah’s divorce, he embarks on a cross-country road trip with his estranged sister Nell back to their hometown. But they get involved in an incident that threatens their safety.
Stopping at a dive bar in the fictional town of Broghton, California, they run afoul of the 48 Coffin motorcycle club, a shit-kicking, ragtag gang led by a Vietnam vet who is probably never going to even the score he’s been keeping with the world. Over the span of a few drinks, Jonah and his sister become mortal enemies of the 48 Coffin, and the outlaws intend to follow them as far as they’ll run.
While the bikers are a problem, a far greater danger is something that crawled out of an abandoned industrial site in the middle of the desert. Something older than all the works of man, and it has been locked away for a very long time. Unfortunately for Jonah Talbot, this antediluvian monstrosity has developed a sudden and mysterious attachment to his sister.
A Black and Endless Sky is a gory, action-packed horror with a dash of the cosmic. It opens with a construction crew discovering a mysterious door deep inside a hole in the ground, and the chaotic fallout from that discovery. I was intrigued by a character introduced at the start, but they were not featured in the rest of the story. Instead, the story moves to Jonah and his sister Nell. The siblings’ relationship is fractured so the road trip is filled with their bickering. It is made worse after a fight at a biker bar and Nell’s accident at the hole. They are also pursued by a woman who appears to have her own nefarious purposes.
