A magical killer and ’80s pop culture headline this crowded but engaging horror tale.
A serial killer with supernatural abilities terrorizes a small town in this debut thriller.
It’s 1989, and 11-year-old Hiram Gresham lives in West Chimney Top, Tennessee, with his 15-year-old sister, Mackenzie, and their mother, Corrie. Hiram’s been experiencing a rough childhood since his father, Deacon, died years ago; the boy is teased at school for stuttering and being chubby. He also sleepwalks, often into the woods, which is extra-dangerous with Lenny Skelton, the Blue Ribbon Killer, at large. After waking in the woods one night, Hiram is sure of having encountered a mysterious, old train car and a sinister man with a plaid mask. Corrie, meanwhile, has been secretly dating Trent Sutton, a wealthy landscaper and widower. Hiram and Mac learn their mom’s secret while visiting the Gold Rush theme park. Trent brings his two obnoxious teens, Jason and Kaitlyn, to the attraction. Later, Jason disappears to make out with Jenny Miles, a park employee. She’s eventually found dead with a blue ribbon, Skelton’s signature. As the seasons progress, Corrie and Trent plan to wed. Hiram comes to believe that Skelton’s victims are connected to the strange train car. Can Justin Johnson, a talented but reclusive former cop—who nearly captured Skelton once—help solve the mystery? Peterson’s tale strives to enshrine all that was magical about growing up in the ’80s. He laces his narrative with mentions of favorite films, toys, video games, music, and fashion, much like Ernest Cline does in Ready Player One (2011). While primarily being a Stephen King–style panorama of a town gripped by horror, Peterson’s story also feels like a cautionary middle-grade tale, especially as Hiram notes his guilt over bullying Lee Dockery, a classmate even more socially awkward than himself. The central plot is most compelling when the author dials back the references and allows his prose to breathe, as in the line “It was like the world had been built from gigantic geometric blocks of earth and grass and trees.” Still, the manic nostalgia that saturates the writing sometimes bogs the story down.
A magical killer and ’80s pop culture headline this crowded but engaging horror tale.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-955085-04-5
Page Count: 477
Publisher: California Coldblood Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2021
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.
Dexter meets Killing Eve in Wallace’s dark comic thriller debut.
While accepting condolences following her father’s funeral, 30-something narrator Claire receives an email saying that one of her paintings is a finalist for a prize. But her joy is short-circuited the next morning when she learns in a second apologetic note that the initial email had been sent to the wrong Claire. The sender, Lucas Kane, is “terribly, terribly sorry” for his mistake. Claire, torn between her anger and suicidal thoughts, has doubts about his sincerity and stalks him to a London pub, where his fate is sealed: “I stare at Lucas Kane in real life, and within moments I know. He doesn’t look sorry.” She dispatches and buries Lucas in her back garden, but this crime does not go unnoticed. Proud of her meticulous standards as a serial killer, Claire wonders if her grief for her father is making her reckless as she seeks to identify the blackmailer among the members of her weekly bereavement support group. The female serial killer as antihero is a growing subgenre (see Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, 2018), and Wallace’s sociopathic protagonist is a mordantly amusing addition; the tool she uses to interact with ordinary people while hiding her homicidal nature is especially sardonic: “Whenever I’m unsure of how I’m expected to respond, I use a cliché. Even if I’m not sure what it means, even if I use it incorrectly, no one ever seems to mind.” The well-written storyline tackles some tough subjects—dementia, elder abuse, and parental cruelty—but the convoluted plot starts to drag at the halfway point. Given the lack of empathy in Claire’s narration, most of the characters come across as not very likable, and the reader tires of her sneering contempt.
Squeamish readers will find this isn’t their cup of tea.Pub Date: April 16, 2024
ISBN: 9780143136170
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Penguin
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.
The loss of her police officer father and the discovery of an abandoned car in a local lake raise chilling questions regarding a young woman’s family history.
When Hazel Sharp returns to her hometown of Mirror Lake, North Carolina, for her father’s memorial, she and the other townspeople are confronted by a challenging double whammy: As they’re grieving the loss of beloved longtime police officer Detective Perry Holt, a disturbing sight appears in the lake, whose waterline is receding because of an ongoing drought—an old, unidentifiable car, which has likely been lurking there for years. Hazel temporarily leaves her Charlotte-based building-renovation business in the capable hands of her partners and reconnects with her brothers, Caden and Gage; her Uncle Roy; her old fling and neighbor, Nico; and her schoolfriend, Jamie, now a mother and married to Caden. Tiny, relentless suspicions rise to the metaphorical surface along with that waterlogged vehicle: There have been a slew of minor break-ins; two people go missing; and then, a second abandoned car is discovered. The novel digs deeper into Hazel’s family history—her father was a widow when he married Hazel’s mother, who later left the family, absconding with money and jewels—and Miranda, a consummate professional when it comes to exposing the small community tensions that naturally arise when people live in close proximity for generations, exposes revelation after twisty revelation: “Everything mattered disproportionately in a small town. Your success, but also your failure. Everyone knows might as well have been our town motto.”
Small-town claustrophobia and intimacies alike propel this twist-filled psychological thriller.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781668010440
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Marysue Rucci Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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