Reviewed by Hansen Adcock, Editor of Once Upon a Crocodile Magazine
Imagine The Road to El Dorado retold in a more contemporary setting, with adult themes, plenty of dark humour, folk-horror, and some sci-fi tropes. Imagine the two main protagonists as George Milton and Lennie Small from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, or even Pinky and the Brain from the old Warner Bros cartoon, and what you’ll have in your head is very close to MN Wiggins’s El Dorado.
The book got off to a slow start, but soon became impossible to put down. A lot of the story was told through dialogue punctuated with action, which made for a fast pace. Despite the book’s occasional gore / dark scenes, there was something surreal and almost cartoonish about them, possibly due to the way the characters reacted and the use of humour.
The characterisation was excellent. Harry had a shameful secret that was hinted at throughout the book but not revealed until later, which kept this reader interested. The complementary yin-yang relationship Harry had with his fellow prison inmate and partner-in-crime Clyde made for plenty of witty repartee. On the whole, the characters’ personalities and relationships with one another changed and adapted over time in a believable way, and the burgeoning friendship between Harry and Clyde was not only utterly tested but tempered by the tale.
My favourite characters included Alice, Lost Cove’s grandmotherly baker who wasn’t what she seemed, and Clyde, who had entertainingly fluctuating levels of intelligence depending on the situation. I didn’t much like Harry with his long-windedness and sense of self-importance, but he somewhat redeemed himself in the final chapters.
The plot of El Dorado was engrossing and filled with intricate twists, mysterious questions, double-crossing, double-double-crossing, and a disturbing bonus twist at the end.
This novel was well-written but could have been improved by another round of line-edits, and there was an interesting dream-sequence that would have been even more absorbing if it was told in an active rather than passive voice. I felt that when Harry’s secret was finally revealed, his confession scene was somewhat rushed and Clyde’s reaction to it was a little blasé. However, I devoured the story in one day and enjoyed it immensely.
I’d recommend El Dorado to fans of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tom Holt, or Children of the Stones, as the town of Lost Cove is a similar idea to the town of Milbury in that.
