Hell and Back Again

10/31/2004

Burton, David C. Hell Cop. Lansdowne, PA: Silver Lake Publishing, 2004. 284 p.

If you like action-adventure oriented fiction, and descriptions of strange creatures such as jump bugs, sling spiders, and partheogenetic golem, then you will enjoy Hell Cop. David Burtons novel is one of many recent offerings in horror fiction set entirely or partly in hell, which is represented as a subterranean sulfur-scented megalopolis full of warring factionsand a Satan who is about to lose control of his empire of the damned. Edward Lees City Infernal most easily comes to mind here, and really, Hell Cop loosely follows much of the plot of Lees novel in that someone must venture into hell to rescue a soul from there. However, Hell Cop differs from City Infernal in that this sojourn into the netherworld isnt a unique thing. Rather it is something routine, at least for those individuals whose profession is that of a hell cop.

Hell cops are an elite band of mortal mercenaries will actually go to hell if you tell them to (and pay them a good chunk of change). They go in order to retrieve loved ones that people are convinced have been misplaced and deserve to spend eternity in a more temperate clime. Apparently hell is run like a state agency: its a huge, inefficient bureaucracy that is generally unwilling to take responsible for its screw ups, requiring individuals to retain powerful personal advocates if they are to get any justice at all. Hell Cop follows the adventures of the hell cop Getter on one of his missions to retrieve the soul of a girl he suspects might actually deserve eternal damnation, regardless of her parents desire to save her, as their story about how she lived and died doesnt quite ring true, perhaps indicating sinister activity. During Getters journey, he is waylaid by the usual infernal suspects, and also manages to get caught up in an uprising.

Much contemporary fiction has represented God as either bored or asleep at the switch when it comes to caring for mortals, and this is certainly the case in Hell Cop, as the Supreme Being doesnt put much effort into being certain as to whos been naughty and whose been nice before packing them off to their final destinations. And if God is bored with his job, so is Satan, who is also paying so little attention to what happens in his domain that he is about to lose control. All of these are the elements of what could be an interesting story, but alas, Hell Cop is rather one-dimensional. The narrative is so focused on furthering action, that there is very little character development to speak of. Also, Getter just spends too long in hell, especially since his journey there is not much more than a series of encounters with other hell cops or strange creatures, and after the first 75 pages, they all seem to run together.

In the authors blurb, Burton stated that he also writes screenplays. Perhaps this is where his real talent lies. A good many films that I have enjoyed on screen (such as the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Shaun of the Dead) would be completely tedious in novel form since they are so dependent on the visual and on action, something difficult to reproduce in the novel format. The novel format is by nature better suited to furthering the plot through interior thoughts, dialogue and character development. To put it bluntly, I can see Hell Cop admirably adapted to the big screen. But as a novel, its rather anemic.