Fiend

Being successful and superrich would be great to allow you to do what you want, but it also comes with limitations. My mother never wanted to be too rich as she thought one of us would get kidnapped. She needn’t have worried had she made a deal with a demon, if anyone had tried to take one of us, they would have a monster on their case. However, even with some sort of entity on their side, the Berisha family do not seem to be enjoying life in Fiend.  

The Berisha family are one of the most powerful dynasties in America, specialising in imports, they always make the right deals and avoid risk. If they do get in a pickle, luck is on their side; disgruntled ex-employees disappear, evidence evaporates. As the business grows, a succession plan is starting to unfold. Zef is getting older, as the first-born son Dardan would seem the most obvious heir, but the ambitious Maris may have something to say about that. Maris wants more power and knowledge about the family, but why is Dardan stopping her from getting too deep? 

Fiend is a nice mix of Succession and The Devil’s Advocate, taking the trauma of family business and throwing some of the underworld into it. However, I mention Advocate as, like that film, the devil’s work is not always that obvious. This is a book about a family that has a curse, but what is that curse? It is kept quite vague throughout a lot of the book, and it is up to the reader to discover if there is truth in the rumours. 

A distance is kept between the reader and the entity by focusing on the character of Maris. She may be the most ambitious in the family, but she is not destined to take over the mantle of head. Therefore, she is kept out of the darkest secrets. The reader must assess and assume from some of the clues we are given. The revealing of the truth is told via a non-linear method. The bulk of the book is set in the present as the family go through a series of crises, but there are flashbacks that reveal what happened when the children were younger. 

The book is played like a straight family saga, but with darker undertones. The succession plan is the backbone of the book as the siblings jostle for position. Maris wants what Dardan seems reluctant to take. There is also the younger sister, Nora, in the background who is playing an entirely different game. 

Is Fiend a scary book? I did not find it so. Some of the actions that the entity undertakes are horrific, but I found the book more of a mood piece or spooky. It is too violent for horror fans that like supernatural tales and is too tame for lovers of extreme. However, there should be an audience for those that like their thrillers with a little extra. There are strong characters and family dynamics. I would say that these dominate the book over anything red, dead, and scaly.