The End

by Adam Cosco

Rating: ****

In an effort to reset their relationship, thirty-four-year-old AI developer Eli and his girlfriend, Selene, decide to spend some time outside of Los Angeles at a remote cabin, but barely a few hours into their break, Eli finds Selene dead in haunting circumstances. 

Broken by grief, seeking answers, and immersing himself in the AI program he and Selene created, Eli discovers that Selene was involved with a shadowy cult tied to her past, one that promises life after death and welcomes Eli with open arms as he desperately tries to learn exactly why and how Selene died…

The End is the third of Cosco’s distinctive books that I have read*, and it is a spellbinding novel, exquisitely written and magically descriptive, playing unnervingly to the reader’s senses and emotions. It has a bleak, poetic quality, loaded with creeping unease from the opening sentences.

The story opens with Eli and Selene driving to the cabin, the journey weighted with unspoken tension and a subtle otherworldliness emanating from Selene that disconcerts. It’s instantly riveting, and the uncanny manner of her death, a short while later, sets the reader’s mind racing with perplexity.

As Eli struggles hugely with the loss of Selene, the reader learns of their connection through a groundbreaking virtual reality AI program they were working on and Selene’s development of an eerily sentient robot, Sal. This sets up a crisp contrast; areas of the narrative are draped in the arcane, whereas others are sharply chilling in their contemporary relevance.

Nonetheless, it also serves as a harrowing study of grief. Cosco renders Eli’s paralyzing anguish with raw, unsettling realism. He is emotionally destroyed, existing in a twilight world and unhealthily fixated on Selene’s AI avatar.

Through his obsessive, searching behavior, the reader begins to discover that she was a damaged individual. As her involvement in the cult is revealed, the reasons remain hidden, although there are hints, and for several chapters, The End morphs into a gripping paranormal mystery courtesy of the cult known as the Philosophical Society, founded by writer Solomon Holloway. 

The inclusion of the odd, antediluvian engravings from Holloway’s book, The Material World, which Selene was reading before her death, in The End is a thoughtful touch, enhancing the ghoulish, eldritch angle.

Judith and Barrett, who lead the Society’s teachings and followers, swing between mildly sinister, naively well-meaning, and downright malignant. Cosco ensures the veracity and motives of both acolytes remain suitably obscure, though he does grant them moments of reliability.

Things get a little strange between the cult and Eli at times. There are a couple of nebulous areas, but such is the meaningful quality and sparkling surface of Cosco’s writing that they can be forgiven.

Indeed, chapter 16, which focuses on Selene’s mother, Bonnie, is one of the strongest, meriting expansion into a novel of its own.

Nonetheless, The End is Eli’s story, and as events hurtle toward the conclusion, Cosco throws everything at the main protagonist and the reader, just about keeping the narrative on track. There are some bizarre, yet credible in context, developments, and the final chapters swing wildly between nearly every horror sub-genre, culminating in a mind-bending but not entirely unexpected ending, followed by a neatly subversive epilogue.

Atmospheric, provocative, and finely written, The End is chillingly good. Highly recommended.

*Click here for my review of Little Brother.

*Click here for my review of The Heart of a Child.

Buy from:

Amazon UK | Amazon US