The Devil in Silver

By: Victor LaValle

Narrated by: Victor LaValle

Pepper is a rambunctious big man, and, suddenly, the surprised inmate of a budget-strapped mental institution in Queens, New York. He's not mentally ill, but that doesn't seem to matter. On his first night, he's visited by a terrifying creature who nearly kills him before being hustled away by the hospital staff. It's no delusion: The other patients confirm that a hungry devil roams the hallways when the sun goes down.

Pepper rallies three other inmates in a plot to fight back: Dorry, an octogenarian schizophrenic; Coffee, an African immigrant with severe OCD; and Loochie, a bipolar teenage girl. Battling the pill-pushing staff, one another, and their own minds, they try to kill the monster that's stalking them. But can the Devil die?

©2012 Victor LaValle (P)2012 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Fantastic

This was awesome; I was hooked from the start. This was sad, funny, and so wonderfully heartfelt without being cheesy, lol. I wished it didn't end, and it's gonna be hard to find something as satisfying as this.

This is a drama, I wanted a thriller/horror.

This is a drama, but I was looking for thriller/horror. A credit wasted on poor categorization.

satisfying, entertaining

still not sure if this is a book about paranormal activity or if everything was about perception and misunderstandings. all in all, very entertaining and kept my interest for the couple of days I listened to it

A fine reboot of Cuckoo's Nest w/ monsters..

Decent story!! I would like to have seen more of a development of Pepper's and Dori's characters. I found it easy to follow the nicknames given to the other characters, it helped the story along. The timeline could have been explained a little bit more. Overall I give it a "MEH++" I would recommend it to a friend that I liked.

intriquing premise, so-so plotline

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Certainly it's a challenge to write a book that takes place in one setting alone. I got a little bored in there.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Premise is compelling - guy gets arrested and thrown into a mental hospital even though it seems everyone, himself, cops, doctors, knows he's not sick.The main conflict flatlines - man/beast patient terrorizes other patients.

Did Victor LaValle do a good job differentiating all the characters? How?

Yes, very much so. It's an interesting story how he drew his characters, which LaValle speaks to in his acknowledgments and also talked about to Terry Gross on NPR.