THE BEYOND

Evil emerges in a small coal town in this horror novel.

Something is attacking people in Blackrock, Pennsylvania. And it seems that the town’s miners are the first to encounter the phenomenon. When Hye Song disappears after cleaning himself up and getting a job in coal, his sister, Moon, hires private eye Ben Sawyer to investigate. What they find in Blackrock is a bit stranger than Ben’s usual cases. The whole town seems to be acting oddly. Professor Saladin Zewail, who teaches at a Penn State satellite in the area, is the first to notice something awry when a former student who was recently killed in a hit-and-run accident comes back to visit him. The dead are returning, and the event is connected to what happened in the mine. Ben, Moon, and Saladin eventually learn there is a supernatural explanation, a portal to a parallel universe from which doppelgängers of Blackrock’s population are trying to escape and replace their counterparts in this world. Still, this realm isn’t going to give up without a fight, and it’s up to Ben, Moon, and Saladin to close the portal and save the town. Brosky’s thriller is a bit slow to develop, especially concerning some of the secondary characters from the other world. And a subplot focusing on Ben’s family history of dementia feels tacked on. This story doesn’t need it: There is too much creepy fun to be had in the worlds the author has created. He shows he knows how to grab readers’ attention in the gory prologue, piling up bodies in the subterranean world of the shafts, where the darkness is so unrelenting that “the color black has a weight to it.” The tale is sometimes sluggish after that until the pieces come together in the third act. There is the clue of Saladin’s former student, but a more robust explanation of the details comes late, which doesn’t so much create suspense as confusion earlier on. Still, there is plenty here for horror fans to chew on, including the many ghastly delights of Smithwick’s mortuary, the best of which involve severed body parts attacking the undertaker. Overall, readers will find much to enjoy in this imperfect but original and entertaining story.

Despite a few flaws, this tale’s inventive worldbuilding and appreciation for bloody thrills shine.