Title: Glossolalia
Author: Tantra Bensko
Publisher: Insubordinate Books
ISBN: 0692551522
Pages: 237
Genre: Psychological Suspense
Reviewed by: CC Thomas
Hollywood Book Reviews
One glance at the front cover of author Tantra Bensko’s book brings to mind the stylistic intentions of wickedly clever Tim Burton, the American film director and artist who forays into the gothic world in his works, perhaps most famously the recent Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with Johnny Depp. While you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, reading Glossolalia most certainly brought to mind those dark and quirky fantasy films, with a dose of snorting laughter thrown in for good measure. You’ll most certainly feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole after taking in a few paragraphs.
Nancy, the main character, is just plain weird. Here, though, that isn’t a complaint. It is a reader’s compliment, especially if the reader is tired of the same mainstream, ho-hum dramas and mysteries that are popular right now. Nancy isn’t easy to like, but is even harder to resist. She’s swept along in a mystery, largely of her own making, from the very first chapter and what follows is a roaring ride through her own dark mind, and the even darker landscape of CIA secrets and spies. All of this from an unscheduled delivery? Be honest—haven’t you ever wondered about those secretive delivery trucks roaming our streets?
Put on your seat belts and get ready because the action starts as soon as Nancy roars off in chase. While she has mostly good intentions at heart, Nancy’s battle against the Agents of Nevermind shows her skill as an action-heroine to the extreme and her surprising skills as a spy/detective/puzzle solver. Clearly, Nancy, like this story, is a bit hard to categorize. Except, it’s mostly in her deluded mind. Or, is it all real? You’ll have a fun time trying to puzzle out the who and what and why in this novel.
The book is most certainly entertaining, but it’s also a bit something more. It’s a story that will resonate with the reader, a plotline that yearns for connections in this equally strange world we inhabit, and a far-off yarn that comes a bit too close to home. There are, though, a lot of meaty bones thrown in, so don’t think the book is a light-hearted look at life with a quirky heroine. This heroine has some major obstacles and gritty noir events to get through that are as uncomfortable for the reader as they are for her. Most of all, Nancy is a character you’ll be rooting for, in a world you don’t’ want to inhabit, in a setting that looks suspiciously like your own neighborhood. Is that Tim Burton enough for you? The book is probably closer to an experimental spy thriller…if Alice’s Lewis Carrol had written in for modern times. Edgy and fun, dark and disturbing, high octane and low blows—this reader is definitely ready for the next installment down Bensko’s imaginative rabbit hole of creativity!