Review: Saint the Terrifying by Joshua Mohr

Saint the Terrifying by Joshua Mohr

Liis reviews Saint the Terrifying, the first book in Joshua Mohr‘s The Saint Trilogy.

A review copy was obtained via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

About the Book
Series:The Saint Trilogy #1
Genre:General Fiction (Adult) / Viking Punk
Publisher:Unnamed Press
Date of Publishing:October 22, 2024
Trigger Warnings:drug abuse, withdrawals, violence, suicide
Page count:290
Book Blurb
Saint the Terrifying by Joshua Mohr

In the first installment of Joshua Mohr’s Viking Punk saga, a West Oakland musician acquires a new name and new calling. Chasing down a gang of thieves, Saint the Terrifying turns a gritty urban detective story into the stuff of legend. 

Saint’s an ex-con still coming to terms with his origin story. 

Raised in the wilds of Norway by an artisan father famed for his glass-blown birds, Saint trained daily in ancient Norse martial arts with a bear as his sparring partner. One day, his father makes a critical mistake, forcing Saint to leave his home forever, and move to San Francisco. 

Years later and fresh out of prison, Saint finds himself immersed in the Oakland punk music scene. On stage, he’s struggling to find his identity as a guitar player in a mediocre band. Off stage, his uniquely Norse skillset suddenly turns Saint into a one-eyed punk gumshoe after sinister thieves start targeting local bands’ gear. But it is only when Saint meets Trick Wilma, the powerhouse lead singer of another (better) band, that he begins to see the glimmer of salvation in her eyes. 

Propelled by a broken Baroque of punk language, Saint the Terrifying examines tensions between community and individual identity, social activism and vigilantism, while taking the reader on a roller coaster ride of hard-boiled twists and hardcore music. Saint is the badass protagonist that answers the question: What if Johnny Rotten had a baby with The Rock?

Quote of the Book
background jpg
Review

Guys… When I was 20% into Saint the Terrifying, I went and added other books by Mohr to my TBR list. 40% through the book I promised to buy a physical copy for myself. 100% through I was crying with happiness because I realized this is going to be a trilogy. Hell yeah!!!

Good grief, everything about this book hit the sweet spot with me. The writing style, the thematic, the… I don’t know. You read about punks like this and you’ll come away thinking, you know what? I don’t need to fit in! And it’s glorious! I felt envy during a certain scene in this book. There’s a scene when someone (not Saint) trashes a car. Goes full on whammy on a vehicle. While the owner is like “Dude, man, my car!”, Saint and co are just laughing. Laughing at the fact that it’s just a damn car and who cares. No care for materialistic things. I felt envy at that in my heart. Imagine being so… free? feral?… something? that you just don’t care about a car being demolished by bricks.

“We all live in the moral mud. We all feed on the empty calories of rationalizations.”

As you may have gathered from the blurb, our main character is Saint. But before he is Saint, we don’t really know his name, at least I don’t think it is uttered in any shape or form. So, the beauty of it all is, we, the reader, get to be there when he earns his new name. And the whole scenario is rather sweet. Who and why calls him Saint. Anyway, Saint gets pulled into “a day” by Got Jokes who says that his band’s gear got stolen, and Got Jokes has a lead – Jesse. So, Saint goes “marching in” (sorrynotsorry) to Jesse’s – it’s not unhinged at all, as he explains, it’s totally hinged – and ends up doing something completely opposite because Jesse is literally at the edge of the abyss, and then Jesse eats Saint’s eye! That’s right. Saint has a fake eye. And Jesse eats it. How and why? Oh, do go on, get the book already and find out yourself! So… we get more leads about who stole the band gear and basically Saint vows to get the gear back. Who and how gets in his way? Again, you’ll have to read for yourself.

During the mad day that leads to all sorts of many other things, we learn about Saint’s childhood. About his mom and his Norwegian dad. And it’s all enough to break your god damn heart! But, Saint has Vikings whispering in his blood and he will do good, he will fight to find joy… He may think he want the Whole Foods life, and his… his… I don’t know what to call them, his “mind trips” give him glimpses of the Whole Foods experience with Green Day Billy. Green Day. Saint hates Green Day.

Anyway!

You know, this is a book of opposites. Saint is any bit as much a saint as he is terrifying. There is as much brutality in the story as there are melt-your-heart, I’m-crying-so-hard-I-can’t-see moments. It’s so harshly black and white as much as it is chaotic and I freaking loved it so much. Even though the whole book is pretty much one big trigger warning sticker, there is simply something about the stark contrast of someone so full of Viking plundering and punk actually showing empathy and love where it counts the most. A magnificent character. A magnificent character with empathy, lovehearts and kindness in his eyes.

All of this, the epic and terrifying character of Saint and the chaos around him and in him, is delivered with a very neat skill of setting beautiful and fitting words one after the other. God damn it, Mohr has some sharp style, and enviable creativity, because some of this stuff is bonkers. It’s so bonkers and so entertaining and so disgusting and so beautiful, all at once!

“I played guitar and she growled, alive in this drywall tundra, this snow globe, this sleep and sleaze, this squall, this fuss, this tempest, this bomb cyclone, this ice storm, this out-of-tune Valhalla.”

So, anyway… as I said, I loved this book. In fact, Saint the Terrifying is my Book of 2024. It has been a LONG time since I enjoyed reading quite so much. I don’t think it was so much the plot… but the characters in all their rawness and life’s tragedies and the persevering through it all. And the writing. It just mm-mm-mmm… And, it’s not even fantasy! *throws hands up in air in disbelief! I would be willing to give up fantasy forever if every general fiction book managed to kick up a storm in me quite so. I don’t even know how to explain its magic to you. Not really. But it’s something. Something powerful.

Our Judgement
Praise Their Name - 5 crowns

If you don’t want to miss any of our posts, please consider signing up to our monthly newsletter or follow us on social media: