Look for callbacks to Stephen King in gritty ’House of Bone and Rain’

Gabino Iglesias’ new novel, “House of Bone and Rain,” opens with a promise and a pact.

Five Puerto Rican teenagers, all friends since childhood, finish high school with hopes and dreams for the future. “Then Bimbo’s mom hit the sidewalk with two bullet holes in her face, and the blood drowned out all those plans.” Aware that the police will do nothing, Bimbo vows to avenge her by killing those responsible. His band of brothers agrees to stand by him.

According to Gabe, the main narrator, he and his friends resemble “the tight-knit group of kids in a Stephen King novel.” However, these boys were forced to grow up fast a long time ago. Iglesias has not written a coming-of-age tale but, rather, a bold and brutal story about how a single-minded quest for justice tests loyalties, frays nerves and corrupts souls.

Gabe and his crew have a shared sense of purpose but individual personalities. Xavier is the smart one, Tavo is the voice of reason and Paul has the shortest fuse. Gabe is a thinker but also a shirker, unable to make a decision about moving to the United States with his girlfriend. Bimbo is the most reckless: He was imprisoned for failing to pay child support and is now involved in a marriage scam to grant a Dominican woman citizenship. When it comes to tracking down his mother’s killers, he also proves to be the most ruthless.

The stakes are raised when it transpires that Bimbo’s mother, a small-time dealer, was bumped off by Papalote, an infamous and untouchable drug kingpin. As Gabe notes, “This was like jumping in a puddle and finding out it’s deeper than the Mariana Trench.”

Then Xavier is murdered and Gabe finds two coffins drawn on his door. Instead of backing down, the boys double their efforts to get the job done. But they aren’t just up against professional killers. When a hurricane rages, it wreaks devastation and brings malevolent spirits. Soon, there is so much carnage and chaos that Gabe starts to wonder if their murderous undertaking is in fact a suicide mission.

Iglesias’ last novel, “The Devil Takes You Home,” followed a hitman in over his head in a demonic criminal underworld. “House of Bone and Rain” is streaked with similar supernatural elements, from ghosts and myths to babies with piranha teeth and men without shadows.

Sometimes these fantastical flourishes don’t work alongside Iglesias’ gritty reality. At other times, they help lighten dark episodes. Certain bloody scenes are too long and too lurid, but when Iglesias gets the balance right there is no denying the raw, visceral power of his prose and the relentless driving force of his narrative.

Enjoy Iglesias’ blend of thrills, horror and magical realism. But this novel’s real strength is in its examination of friendship and its depiction of the ripple effects of violence.

Malcolm Forbes, who has written for the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

House of Bone and Rain

By: Gabino Iglesias.

Publisher: Mulholland, 352 pages, $29.