Walk Towards The Light And Pierce The Veil.

“Religion was invented when the first con-man met the first fool.”—Mark Twain

Derek Boone can’t catch a break in David Simms’s new horror/thriller Pierce the Veil (2024). First he dies in an auto accident on an icy bridge on his way home from his band's gig only to be resurrected by a cutting-edge technology after being dead for a day. Then everyone expects him to have had a near death experience (NDE), but to his dismay he has no memory of what happened during this time. This is complicated when he finds himself pursued by two different groups who want to know the knowledge he gleaned during his NDE. A ruthless manhunter named the Priest akin to The Terminator stalks Derek and his girlfriend, Megan, throughout greater New Jersey and New York. At the same time a mysterious cult is also after him and wants to get him first and will do this by any means necessary.

Pierce the Veil is a nonstop “One Damn Thing After Another” page-turner that explores religion, cults, relationships, and the idea of NDEs. In a section reminiscent of a Good Morning America or Live with Kelly and Mark type program, a panel of near death survivors tell their tales of brushes with the Divine. Derek is nervous because he has no tale to tell, he’s doing it for the money he desperately needs. Everyone has some interesting story of “seeing the light” or “meeting loved ones” or even God himself. The Priest is in the audience there to listen to their stories. He’s not impressed. He takes drastic action to make sure no one tells their stories again. Derek and Megan barely get away with their lives in a harrowing escape. These stories of NDEs are represented as being the fictious imaginings of people desperate for attention. Are NDEs even a real thing? Maybe they are the result of an overactive brain, little more than dreams of what we expect to happen based on previous information.

Pierce the Veil steps up and asks the big questions. Does God even exist? It made me ask myself profound questions. Perhaps organized religions are complicated corporations that have it all wrong. People have been killing each other around the world for millennia in the name of gods that don’t exist. Hate and bigotry are the result of man’s own devices, not a god’s decree. Is the bible a book of Divine inspiration or a collection of books carefully put together by men that left out hundreds of other books that didn’t fit the narrative that they wanted?  The theological element of Pierce the Veil is as interesting as the thriller aspect of the book. And I know the genesis (please, excuse the pun) of this side of the book.

In an effort of full disclosure, Dave and I went to grade school together at St. Joseph’s Catholic School in Carteret, New Jersey (which in Pierce the Veil he aptly describes as, “a frightening little town most people avoid”). We both also went to Catholic school for all twelve years. Dave’s protagonist Derek is decidedly critical of organized religion and this is a point of contention with Megan who is a pious believer. The interplay between the two is vigorous and frustrating for them both as they can’t reconcile their different opinions. Dave sets out Derek’s agenda in a robust manner—religion is the biggest scam in history; it’s a business enterprise than manipulates it’s followers for their money; priests abuse children and are protected after doing so. His list of grievances is long. Dave and I witnessed first-hand the dark side of Catholic education, especially the physical discipline and damning to hell. We both survived but not without asking questions about what we experienced. Megan, however, is a devout believer and doesn’t understand why Derek is so hostile to the church. She is even close to a priest at her church and goes to him for counsel. She represents the faithful follower that Derek cannot be. He wants to marry Megan but doesn’t know how to get around the religion issue. Will this scuttle their hopes and dreams of a life together? Derek hopes not because he loves Megan.

The character of the Priest is especially cruel and dark. I was gripped by him and his love of killing, how it was a physical euphoria that he experienced when he took a life especially by his own hands. This is a gruesome commentary I think on the metaphorical choking of our inner essence that we experienced in school by the church. It was a permanent scarring that lasted for years in our conscious and subconscious that manifests itself certainly in my own writings where religious symbolism always seems to appear in my stories. The immersion in Catholicism that Dave also had must have influenced Derek Boone’s religious attitudes. Paradoxically, the Priest is obsessed by carnal pleasures, possibly another jab at the hypocrisy of the church. He spends his “off” time ravaging woman on exotic island locations. Not a very priestly endeavor. He even engages in a threesome. This total plunge into excess and decadence made me smirk when I thought of the priests that I had as a kid when Dave and I went to school together.

Since Pierce the Veil is a newly published book I will not reveal the ending, I will leave that to you, the reader, to explore on your own. I highly recommend this intoxicating blend of thrills and devout conviction that will keep you awake late into the evening when you should have gone to bed but can’t stop reading. You can purchase it on Amazon.com along with the prolific Mr. Simms’s other fine books such as Fear the Reaper and Dark Muse.

Next time I’ll be tackling Jack Kerouac’s beat generation classic On The Road. Please leave any feedback you may have in the comments section below or drop me an email. Also, don’t forgot to subscribe to this blog to get alerts when new articles are posted. Thank you for reading. Tell a friend if you liked what you saw. Stop by again!