A DREAM OF DARKNESS

A town becomes beset by evil forces in this debut fantasy.

Norick is a place apart. A thousand leagues north of civilization, the town sits alone in a vast wilderness—and its inhabitants like it that way. They’ve grown rich off the resources of the land, though in time they’ve forgotten to keep an eye on the shadow-filled woods that surround them. As they begin celebrating the centennial of the town’s founding—a one-night festival of free food and beer—something untoward is unfolding on the fringes of the community. A magistrate finds a blackmail letter affixed to his door, demanding that he meet someone in a grove in one hour. A fisherman discovers that some of his tools have been stolen. The town’s oldest resident, a woman present at its founding, is behaving strangely, warning of a coming storm. A mother suffering from a vision tells her 10-year-old daughter: “It’s coming” and “You need to run.” Norick’s only defense is the Town Guard, a less-than-professional police force run by Capt. William Breeve. William has been a barely functional alcoholic since the death of his wife and child. Does he have it in him to save Norick from the enemy who is coming? Unfortunately, neither William nor Norick has much of a choice. In this series opener, Kruse’s prose is tight and brooding, summoning suspense out of Norick’s nighttime alleyways and forests: “The hour of chaos had come. William felt the horror of it then, but also the thrill. The world itself had gone mad—suddenly, irreparably mad. Everything was coming undone, loosening, the order of things cleaved apart.” The blend of horror and fantasy is an appealing one, and the author hops effectively among his large cast of characters. The story takes its time revving up, but once it gets going, it becomes a true page-turner. Since more books in the series are planned, perhaps inevitably readers will be left with the sense that Kruse has saved a lot of the good stuff for later. Even so, Norick is a fun place to visit for a while.

A slyly engrossing tale that deftly combines fantasy and horror elements.