A compact but unforgettable tale as a novelist’s chilling creation seemingly comes to life.
In this paranormal thriller, a writer’s evolving story about killers turns doubly horrifying when she realizes these fictitious murders are occurring in real life.
Londoner Anna St. John arrives in New Orleans with her husband. She’s a novelist hoping the French Quarter will provide inspiration for her latest book. In no time, she crafts the tale of Voodoo practitioner Bartholomew DuCuir XVII, who calls on his ancestors’ spirits to help enact revenge. He and his love, Wren, lead repugnant men, including a rapist, to a basement they’ll likely never leave. But the culprit the pair truly wants is Wren’s former foster guardian, who’s responsible for vile acts committed against her when she was a teenager. The story flows, and Anna’s happy with her progress until she hears of a brutal death in real life just like the one she wrote about. When it happens again, she searches the French Quarter for Bartholomew and Wren, on the off chance the two actually exist. In Anna’s novel, Bartholomew performs a ritual to summon a writer, who will record his “epic tale.” If Anna is that author, she’s inexorably tied to a vicious killer—in the flesh. Laningham quickly establishes a relentless, unnerving tone, opening with Bartholomew’s brutal plan. This taut novella boasts strong dual characters. Bartholomew is descended from an enslaved African who was sexually assaulted, and Anna has grown weary of the husband she caught cheating. Despite Bartholomew’s seeking vengeance for Wren, she takes a back seat to her partner. As readers know little about her, the revenge story isn’t as “epic” as her lover repeatedly asserts. Still, Laningham’s tale enthralls, especially once Anna starts agonizing over what’s unfolding and starts speculating about hackers, coincidences, and whether her fictional characters are frighteningly real. Savage, drawn-out murders in plain sight (though never excessively graphic) spawn an effectively understated final act and a genuinely disturbing conclusion.
A compact but unforgettable tale as a novelist’s chilling creation seemingly comes to life.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Manuscript
Review Posted Online: Aug. 27, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.
The master of supernatural disaster returns with four horror-laced novellas.
The protagonist of the title story, Holly Gibney, is by King’s own admission one of his most beloved characters, a “quirky walk-on” who quickly found herself at the center of some very unpleasant goings-on in End of Watch, Mr. Mercedes, and The Outsider. The insect-licious proceedings of the last are revisited, most yuckily, while some of King’s favorite conceits turn up: What happens if the dead are never really dead but instead show up generation after generation, occupying different bodies but most certainly exercising their same old mean-spirited voodoo? It won’t please TV journalists to know that the shape-shifting bad guys in that title story just happen to be on-the-ground reporters who turn up at very ugly disasters—and even cause them, albeit many decades apart. Think Jack Torrance in that photo at the end of The Shining, and you’ve got the general idea. “Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same,” King writes, “and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard.” In the careful-what-you-wish-for department, Rat is one of those meta-referential things King enjoys: There are the usual hallucinatory doings, a destiny-altering rodent, and of course a writer protagonist who makes a deal with the devil for success that he thinks will outsmart the fates. No such luck, of course. Perhaps the most troubling story is the first, which may cause iPhone owners to rethink their purchases. King has gone a far piece from the killer clowns and vampires of old, with his monsters and monstrosities taking on far more quotidian forms—which makes them all the scarier.
Vintage King: a pleasure for his many fans and not a bad place to start if you’re new to him.Pub Date: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-3797-7
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
A frighteningly good debut.
Mysterious guests overstay their welcome in this fresh take on the haunted house trope.
Eve Palmer makes the biggest mistake of her life when there’s a knock on the door from a man who says he grew up in her house. Against her better instincts she invites him and his family inside, but a 15-minute look around turns into a world of trouble when she can’t get them to leave. First the Faust family’s young daughter disappears in the basement; then a storm hits and the roads are blocked, giving them no choice but to spend the night. Soon rooms appear altered, strange odors waft through the house, and a toy chimp from Eve’s childhood seems to be sending her a warning: "Once they’re in, they never leave." Kliewer’s original and extremely scary story gathers elements inspired by authors like Shirley Jackson and classic horror films including Invasion of the Body Snatchers. He’s created a can’t-look-away imaginary world in which people and places aren’t what they appear. Readers will be as shaken as Eve, who fears she’s suffering from delusions when an apparition warns her that the Fausts—and even her partner, Charlie—aren’t who they say they are. Inserted between the book’s chapters are "documents" that lay out evidence collected by conspiracy theorists who believe what’s happening to Eve has nothing to do with delusions. This alternate storyline, written in the style of Reddit—Kliewer’s novel grew out of a novella he posted there—feels jarring at times, as we’re reluctantly pulled away from Eve’s gripping tale. The conspiracy theorists’ creepy posts aren’t quite as hypnotic, but they solidify the plot’s premise and neatly tie up Eve’s predicament. Fans of the surging horror genre will think twice about opening the door when somebody knocks.
A frighteningly good debut.Pub Date: June 18, 2024
ISBN: 9781982198787
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
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