In Robinson’s supernatural thriller, a 10-year high school reunion becomes the site of violent revenge.

It’s 1985, and freelance illustrator Charlie Parker is looking forward to seeing his former classmates again—he and his “close-knit group of friends” all plan to attend their upcoming reunion at the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in Florida. While Charlie got along with most people in school, he periodically bumped heads with Ernie Gonzalez. It’s hardly surprising that Ernie is in prison, as he’s been breaking the law since he was barely a teen. Ernie makes headlines when he somehow escapes. The fugitive reunites with his girlfriend, Tracy Anderson, who was a fellow bully when the two were in high school. The two decide that the Florida reunion is the perfect chance to exact revenge on Charlie and others, including Ernie’s former lawyer, whom he blames for his prison sentence. This nefarious couple isn’t the only thing the class of ’75 has to fear; the Belleview is infamous as the site of the brutal 1935 murder of wealthy, unscrupulous businessman Silas Winslow. In the years that followed the killing, Suite 417, where his body was found, unnerved many who stayed there. Guests reported the sounds of unknown footsteps, glasses sliding off tables, and unexplainable “cold spots.” The hotel long ago closed the third and fourth floors, but Ernie and Tracy are strangely drawn specifically to Suite 417. It certainly feels like something’s still there—a malevolent something that seems to be calling Ernie to the hotel.

Robinson excels at developing his principal cast, including Charlie and his wife, Sally Ann, who were high school sweethearts; Charlie’s “gentle giant” of a best friend, Teddy Sullivan; and, of course, Ernie and Tracy, busy committing crimes. There’s even an extended 1965 subplot involving an investigative journalist who’s made a habit of debunking reputed hauntings and is shaken by his stay in Belleview’s notorious suite. The narrative effectively builds tension with the approach of the reunion and the inevitable arrival of Ernie and Tracy (who can easily hide their identities during the masked cocktail party). The story also teases potential hookups, rediscovered sparks, and clashes among those still holding grudges. Indeed, there may be too many characters—some pop into the narrative, only to be immediately dropped and never mentioned again. Others come with backstories that barely register, and a forbidden romance that promises much drama ultimately leads nowhere. Adding to the confusion, several first names recur among different characters, including one with five separate surnames, and one notable person’s name inexplicably changes in the final act. Still, the author deftly juggles the various time periods, delineating eras with telling details like pop-culture nods and references to schoolkids fighting for desegregation. The novel’s supernatural aspect, while thoroughly established, plays an unexpectedly small part; the ghostly presence residing at the hotel is unsettling, but the cold-bloodedness of Ernie and Tracy makes them scary enough on their own.

Old friends and enemies energize this robust horror tale, though the surfeit of characters nearly overwhelms it.

In Robinson’s horror novel, the massacre of a Native American tribe in California prompts its sole survivor to embark on a 100-year campaign of revenge.

The story opens with the murder of 250 Wiyot people by knife-, hatchet-, and axe-wielding white settlers on Feb. 26, 1860, in California’s Humboldt County during the tribe’s annual World Renewal Ceremony. Kinetitah, the lone Wiyot survivor, comes up short in his brief quest for justice at the local sheriff’s department. No matter, though, because Kinetitah, known as “Mad River Billy” to locals, has an ace up his sleeve that the massacre’s ringleader, Timothy Hurley, can never hope to play. Kinetitah happens to be a superpowered shaman who’s attuned to the brightest and darkest forces of nature. He wastes no time summoning their energies, which enable him to transform at will into a horrible, 15-foot beast and embark on a grim murder spree of his own. Only then do Hurley and his murderous accomplices grasp the effect of their horrific deeds, but it’s too late to undo what they’ve done, and they—and, years afterward, their descendants—begin to vanish at a dizzying rate. About a century later, it’s up to troubled University of California, Berkeley professor Wes Cravenfish to connect the relevant dots as people in his orbit meet terrible fates, which throws dark shadows on his own past. A grudge that never relents, a curse that won’t die until every last condition is fulfilled—these provide the spark of Robinson’s latest offering, which burns with intensity from the opening page. Over the course of this novel, Robinson has fashioned a suitably dark, Gothic cocktail, driven along by a heightened tone (“The earth remembers. The spirits remember”) as well as unyielding action, once Mad River Billy goes about his monstrous business. Kinetitah’s monster form is armed with tentacles and mandibles that seem straight out of an H.P. Lovecraft horror story, and he has vows to match: “I will feed on your souls as the next payment for your atrocities.” Revenge tales have rarely felt so vicariously thrilling as they do here.

A fiery tale of vengeance that keeps the tension high.