What's more frightening? Spiders or being stuck behind barbed wire in an internment camp? A review of The Fervor.

 

or driving an AMC Rambler on a dark, deserted road?

The Fervor has some fantastic strong female characters who fit the description, "yet still she persisted." These are two women and a girl who keep looking for the truth even though things get stranger and more dangerous minute by minute. I especially like Fran, the reporter who won't give up on a story through threats, stalking, and having to drive lonely dark highways in a broken-down Rambler. Going anywhere in an AMC car is enough to make this a horror story.

But there's more! Spiders!  A ghost in a kimono who urges people to hold her baby. A deadly epidemic. The tragedy of racism and internment camps. All with the background of World War II.

Two problems I have with this book is that occasional explanations came across as info dumps, especially toward the end where the FBI wraps everything up neatly. After action, shootings, fires, explosions, plague, death, a nice man comes in and explains the past events. The other thing that bothered me was that Fran, the reporter, was such a huge piece of the puzzle only to become an afterthought. Instead of babysitting, Fran should be writing a non-fiction book blowing this story sky-high! (Not that you can't babysit and write a Pulitzer Prize winning book at the same time, but still.)

Science fiction and horror are used often to make comments on society. The hatred shown to Asians in The Fervor, especially when the disease is blamed on the internment camps, mirror the kind of hate speech and hate crimes we see today. There's a lot more to The Fervor, from Japanese myths, to the science of the Jet Stream, to military misconduct.

Thanks to Netgalley and Putnam for allowing me to read and review The Fervor.  And thanks to the American Motor Company for making Ramblers. They were cute but didn't run worth crap.