A gripping horror tale in the pulpy paperback tradition.
A group of adults who survived a murder spree decades ago confronts the possible reemergence of the killer in this horror novel.
In 1986, the small town of Deighton, Pennsylvania, was terrorized by a serial killer named Tom Wickerman, who murdered at least six children before crashing his car into a frozen lake during a winter storm. The survivors—the kids the Deighton Demon did not slay—formed the Leftovers Club as a means to work through their collective trauma. The club still meets 35 years later, and most of the members have long since built stable lives for themselves. Joe White grew up to be a successful novelist and has two kids with fellow Leftover Judy. But things are about to change. It begins when Joe notices an older man hanging around outside his house. When the man makes vague threats regarding the writer’s young son, Simon, Joe can’t help but wonder if it’s Wickerman. It’s impossible, of course—Wickerman would be over 100 years old even if he hadn’t died in the lake—but maybe he had a brother or some other relative? At the next Leftovers meeting, Joe learns that he isn’t the only one who thinks he’s seen the killer around town. Oddities continue to pile up, but when one of their own turns up murdered in her house, the Leftovers know that the Deighton Demon isn’t done with them. From the very beginning, Wennerstroem’s prose clicks like an ascending roller coaster, building tension with every scene: “Judy shook her head; she hadn’t seen her, nor did she want to, at least not yet. The room down the hall overflowed with feverish commotion, voices distorted by fear and horror, then the house fell quiet, dead quiet.” The book has strong notes of Stephen King—the premise is more than a bit reminiscent of It—but as the tale unfolds, Wennerstroem’s sensibility comes into its own. The characters mostly hew to established types—including the cops working on the investigation, a street-wise Baltimore transfer and a veteran of the 1986 case—but the author draws them well. For fans of terror and suspense, Wennerstroem’s unnerving story does the trick.
A gripping horror tale in the pulpy paperback tradition.Pub Date: Nov. 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-648-97980-7
Page Count: 366
Publisher: FarSight Publications
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Soapy, suspenseful fun.
A remembered horror plunges a pregnant woman into a waking nightmare.
Tegan Werner, 23, barely recalls her one-night stand with married real estate developer Simon Lamar; she only learns Simon’s name after seeing him on the local news five months later. Simon wants nothing to do with the resulting child Tegan now carries and tells his lawyer to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. A destitute Tegan is all too happy to trade her silence for cash—until a whiff of Simon’s cologne triggers a memory of him drugging and raping her. Distraught and eight months pregnant, Tegan flees her Lewiston, Maine, apartment and drives north in a blizzard, intending to seek comfort and counsel from her older brother, Dennis; instead, she gets lost and crashes, badly injuring her ankle. Tegan is terrified when hulking stranger Hank Thompson stops and extricates her from the wreck, and becomes even more so when he takes her to his cabin rather than the hospital, citing hazardous road conditions. Her anxiety eases somewhat upon meeting Hank’s wife, Polly—a former nurse who settles Tegan in a basement hospital room originally built for Polly’s now-deceased mother. Polly vows to call 911 as soon as the phones and power return, but when that doesn’t happen, Tegan becomes convinced that Hank is forcing Polly to hold her prisoner. Tegan doesn’t know the half of it. McFadden unspools her twisty tale via a first-person-present narration that alternates between Tegan and Polly, grounding character while elevating tension. Coincidence and frustratingly foolish assumptions fuel the plot, but readers able to suspend disbelief are in for a wild ride. A purposefully ambiguous, forward-flashing prologue hints at future homicide, establishing stakes from the jump.
Soapy, suspenseful fun.Pub Date: Jan. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9781464227325
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
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