Let me say one thing straight off the top. I am not writing for your amusement, to ensure historical accuracy, or to get across some sort of philosophical metaphor. This document is my confession. I am writing down my experiences because I can no longer stand their weight on my soul. I need to relieve myself of the burden of my years and my actions. This is my last chance, my last desperate grasp onto the final traces of my sanity and my humanity. If only I can objectively recall what has happened to me, what I have been through, what I have done, then perhaps somehow I can find some loophole, some way to stem the inevitable tide of events that threatens to completely consume me. Deep down I know that I am kidding myself. I have no faith in this endeavor. In my heart I understand that there is no hope left for me, but still what’s left of my humanity dictates that I must try, must struggle against my inner demons one last time. One last gasp before the end.

I fervently hope and desperately pray that no one will ever get a chance to read what I am about to commit to paper. They’ll be coming for me soon, and I am almost certain (for reasons which will become apparent later) that I will completely destroy all evidence of this manuscript in the next few hours. Once that happens there will be nothing left to tell my tale. No one still alive knows enough of the pieces to understand the horrific whole. There are no records of my travails in any accessible archive. Without maps (which for the reader’s safety I will not provide), there is little chance of finding any of the objects and sites scattered around the world that could validate my words. If by some strange twist of fate this document does somehow get into a reader’s hands, I urge that reader to immediately destroy the copy before proceeding any further. The words written down here can be the result of only two things. Either I have gone completely mad, in which case the following is just the gibberish and ravings of a lunatic, unworthy of review; or I have been the victim of an organization that does not wish to become known and possesses such power and influence that even having the barest knowledge of their existence could be a significant danger to the health and sanity of the reader. In either case, no mention of this manuscript should ever be made, and no part of it should ever be allowed to see the light of day. The information contained within can be of no benefit to the reader. I am a man who looked too closely at the inner mysteries, and it has only resulted in my downfall. Retain your innocence.

Dominic Peloso (2012-04-21 00:00:00-08:00). City of Pillars (Kindle Locations 29-47). Kindle Edition.

What happens when you stumble upon a conspiracy so big that just knowing about it might drive you mad? Paranoia becomes a close friend and even the haze of drug use adds clarity to your tortured mind. When Mitchell Sinclair stumbles upon a mystery that propels him from ambitious lawyer to man on the run, he will wonder how much of his world is consumed by it and how much of his life has been consumed by insanity.Dominic Peloso’s novel, City of Pillars is the written confession of Michael Sinclair, a fictional lawyer from San Francisco that had a mystery dumped in his lap. He thinks little of it until it is too late and he is forced to run from the police and the mysterious men in black hats. The more threads he unravels from the mystery, the more tangled it becomes. Who is behind the conspiracy? Why are they after him? What do they want? I would love to go into all of this more, but I would hate to give away anything in this mind-bender of a conspiracy laden novel. I’ll try not to give away any spoilers in the rest of the review, but reader beware.

The author takes the reader through the torturous, first-person journey of the protagonist a he tries to figure out why he is being hounded and who is doing the hounding. The book would be interesting enough as a typical piece of the conspiracy theory fiction filled with harrowing chases and narrow escapes, but the author takes this one step further as he explores the life of a man on his own and the demons he must face in his solitude. The narrative is harsh and unsettling in places, but it feels so plausible that the reader is almost willing to forgive Michael his sins. The plot moves along quickly, but the reading can be a little slow as most of it is written in internal narrative. Dialogue is limited, but that is okay since the book is about a man on his own.

If there is a problem with this book it is that on occasion Michael goes on about things and then tells the reader that he can’t go into any details. It serves to move the narrative along, but it feels a little like a cheat. Including the hinted at information would have increased the length of the book with pages of additional narrative, so it is understandable that the information was left out, but it would have been more satisfying for the missing information to be glossed over rather than pointed at directly.

I really enjoyed City of Pillars and I would recommend it to anyone that is in the mood for something a little heavy.

You can buy the book at Amazon.com HERE.

Visit the author’s web page: www.tinyghosts.com

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