I just finished this book and to be honest I’m not sure how I feel about it. The writing was superb and the story was definitely interesting. The characters were well formed and I really liked them. There was A LOT going on in the book though which at times made it a little overwhelming but all the characters tied in well together at the end. Basically the gist of this book is Good vs. Evil. You wouldn’t expect it to have a fantastical bit to it and reading the synopsis of the book you wonder how it is all going to fit together but it does. Interestingly enough this book was actually published in 2011 but I’m glad they re-released it or I may never have read it.
After writing this review I can conclude I did enjoy the book it was very different then anything else I’ve ever read which is always a good thing.
Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC for an honest review.

Have you read THE SLAB? If you have, you're going to want to want buy this re-release. Author Jeff Mariotte ripped it up and added and edited and in doing so turned what I originally thought was a four star book into a book that I just loved.

Taking place just after 9/11 in the desert near the California/Arizona border, THE SLAB is about people - who they are, It's about life and magic. There's murder, mayhem and redemption. There's hope and despair. It's about friendship, love and hate.

It's such a damn good book. I hope that you will put this on your list of must reads. I highly recommend it.

This was so good. Why isn’t this a more well known book. Or author, for that matter. The Slab has been around for 16 years (at the times of this review writing) and only gathered three actual reviews on GR. Tragic. But it seems obvious that this book’s political agenda might have been worked against it. To publish the book so outspokenly left leaning during the jingoistic fervor of those times must have been akin to shooting it in the foot…or, since it’s a book, shooting it in the spine. The author has apparently being around for a long time, enough to produce 70 some novels, the number is less staggering when you find out how many of them were movie tie ins, but still. At any rate, experience is experience and the writing here is absolutely terrific. My initial reluctance to check out a 400 some page novel I’ve never heard of by the author I’ve never read vanished almost immediately upon getting into this thoroughly immersive story. The Slab is a nightmarish creation in a forbidding climate of Californian desert with the toxic waters of a dirty sea for scenery. It attracts a certain type of tenants, none too good, but the most evil one of all is the one buried under it and desperate to get out. Evil and desperation are featured pretty heavily through the novel, in fact, not always together, but inevitably coloring the bleak surroundings. There is also a group of serial killers out on their annual getaway. There is also a slick property developer, who has recently purchased the Slab and is eager to throw the current tenants out like so much trash. Everyone’s armed. Everyone’s angry. It’s only a matter of time until this pot boils over and then no one is safe and it’s up to three war veterans (three different wars, three different generations) to harness their inner magic and save (well at least this portion) of the world from evil both all too natural and completely supernatural. If my description sounds busy, it’s because the novel does have a lot going on, but busy is a reductive description for what is essentially an epic novel of the classic good/evil conflict. It is character driven, immersive and very, very well done. Granted, right leaning individuals might find themselves put off by the repeated messages of different politics and those within the novel subscribing to these opinions are almost cartoonishly evil, but ignoring that, it’s just a pretty great story and tons of fun to read. The book is undersold by its modest mushroom cover and as easy (and accurate in this case) as it would be to make jokes about the magic mushrooms, the Slab is really the book’s greatest most imaginative creation. All the more so by the addition of the Native American legends. I liked this one a lot and was thoroughly entertained the entire time reading it. It’s definitely one of the best genre novels I’ve read recently. In fact it would have worked as a regular thriller too, the addition of supernatural interesting but not strictly necessary. Or more like…the novel was good enough without reliance on magic, but why wouldn’t you want to throw some magic in too. And there is a moral here too, about the balance of good and evil in every person. In one instance that didn’t quite work with one of the main characters for me, it seemed like a major stretch to try to ignore actively hunting down, raping and killing young women for years and consider the rest of the person’s character and potential positive qualities. Seems like some things just overpower the moral scales too much for any semblance of balance. But all that aside, still a pretty awesome read. Exciting, thrilling, fun. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.