Acute horror tales that are as enthralling as they are outright scary.
Characters suffer the torment of loneliness, heartache, and otherworldly beings in this collection of grim short stories.
In the title tale, Cole Parker dies at the hands of a mysterious, tall, gray man. Yet Cole somehow returns to consciousness in an entirely new life that’s both strange and familiar. His wife, Angeline, and her abusive ex-husband, Frank Bannon, are there as well, but though their faces and names haven’t changed, everything else is different. Chillingly, the black-eyed gray man makes his way into this life to kill Cole once again. This begins a seemingly endless cycle of lives for Cole, from an escaped prisoner to a vile, corrupt senator, joined by versions of Angeline and Frank. If Cole can learn who the gray man is, perhaps he can stop him from repeatedly murdering him and return to his original existence with Angeline. Grant’s book also includes five additional stories that are shorter but equally dark. In “The Dead Years,” a man meets Margot Walker, who’s the mirror image of his lost love, Emma Grace. He wants to believe that Margot truly is Emma, but the truth is far more disconcerting. The author, whose work includes TV series, short films, and a comic-book adaptation, has a crisp prose that condenses hefty narratives into short forms. “A Thousand Rooms of Darkness,” for example, concerns Anne Hunnicut and her intense phobia of Halloween; her meticulous backstory gives this fear credibility and enhances the suspenseful tale’s latter half. As with all good horror stories, relatable issues affect the characters here, such as despondency and suicidal urges. But Grant also succeeds at dread-inducing setups. Jack Bennett, in “Static,” is the bodyguard for Laura Cooper, but even he’s shaken by the unexplained staticky calls to a safe house’s private number.
Acute horror tales that are as enthralling as they are outright scary. (acknowledgements, author bio)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947041-72-1
Page Count: 246
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A weird, wild ride.
Celebrity scandal and a haunted lake drive the narrative in this bestselling author’s latest serving of subtly ironic suspense.
Sager’s debut, Final Girls (2017), was fun and beautifully crafted. His most recent novels—Home Before Dark (2020) and Survive the Night (2021) —have been fun and a bit rickety. His new novel fits that mold. Narrator Casey Fletcher grew up watching her mother dazzle audiences, and then she became an actor herself. While she never achieves the “America’s sweetheart” status her mother enjoyed, Casey makes a career out of bit parts in movies and on TV and meatier parts onstage. Then the death of her husband sends her into an alcoholic spiral that ends with her getting fired from a Broadway play. When paparazzi document her substance abuse, her mother exiles her to the family retreat in Vermont. Casey has a dry, droll perspective that persists until circumstances overwhelm her, and if you’re getting a Carrie Fisher vibe from Casey Fletcher, that is almost certainly not an accident. Once in Vermont, she passes the time drinking bourbon and watching the former supermodel and the tech mogul who live across the lake through a pair of binoculars. Casey befriends Katherine Royce after rescuing her when she almost drowns and soon concludes that all is not well in Katherine and Tom’s marriage. Then Katherine disappears….It would be unfair to say too much about what happens next, but creepy coincidences start piling up, and eventually, Casey has to face the possibility that maybe some of the eerie legends about Lake Greene might have some truth to them. Sager certainly delivers a lot of twists, and he ventures into what is, for him, new territory. Are there some things that don’t quite add up at the end? Maybe, but asking that question does nothing but spoil a highly entertaining read.
A weird, wild ride.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-18319-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 29, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.
The ne’er-do-well son of a successful Irish American family gets dragged into criminal complications that suggest the rest of the Devlins aren’t exactly the upstanding citizens they appear.
The first 35 years in the life of Thomas “TJ” Devlin have been one disappointment after another to his parents, lawyers who founded a prosperous insurance and reinsurance firm, and his more successful siblings, John and Gabby. A longtime alcoholic who’s been unemployable ever since he did time for an incident involving his ex-girlfriend Carrie’s then 2-year-old daughter, TJ is nominally an investigator for Devlin & Devlin, but everyone knows the post is a sinecure. Things change dramatically when golden-boy John tells TJ that he just killed Neil Lemaire, an accountant for D&D client Runstan Electronics. Their speedy return to the murder scene reveals no corpse, so the brothers breathe easier—until Lemaire turns up shot to death in his car. John’s way of avoiding anything that might jeopardize his status as heir apparent to D&D is to throw TJ under the bus, blaming him for everything John himself has done and adding that you can’t trust anything his brother has said since he’s fallen off the wagon. TJ, who’s maintained his sobriety a day at a time for nearly two years, feels outraged, but neither the police investigating the murder nor his nearest and dearest care about his feelings. Forget the forgettable mystery, whose solution will leave you shrugging instead of gasping, and focus on the circular firing squad of the Devlins, and you’ll have a much better time than TJ.
As an adjunct member says, “You’re not a family, you’re a force.” Exactly, though not in the way you’d expect.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780525539704
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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