BAD THINGS HAPPENED HERE

A boy teams up with his mother’s spirit to investigate a neighborhood mystery.

Sam’s mother, who was of South Asian descent, died when he was a baby. He’s learned about her mostly from her MySpace page, a digital document of her youth. Visiting his maternal grandmother in Singapore, he embraces the opportunity to see his mother’s childhood home firsthand. But it isn’t what he imagined. Despite Singapore’s balmy climate, the cul-de-sac is gray and chilly, and the house overflows with a “dizzying mess” of memories. Soon, he’s seeing ghosts—one of them is his mother, frozen in time at 12 years old, who guides him through the world she left behind. Home alone (ghosts notwithstanding) while his grandmother works, Sam explores a derelict factory. A horrifying game of hide-and-seek in its dark recesses leaves him with a maggot-covered cat skeleton on his lap, and, with a mix of fear and fascination, he accepts his mission to discover what’s behind the shadows lurking over the neighborhood. The stakes intensify as Sam’s investigations deepen and he encounters threats both paranormal and human-made. Hossain’s prose is compellingly moody, building suspense slowly while engaging readers on every page. Gothic settings, spectral attacks that leave Sam physically bruised, and eerie elements of South Asian mythology provide thrills for those seeking serious scares but may overwhelm more tender-hearted readers. Sam is cued biracial (his father presents white).

Horror, suspense, and family history collide with marvelously scary results.