The Narrows by Ronald Malfi
My rating: 4/5 cats
spooooky!
i am still trying to find a horror novel that scares me, because my fatal flaw is an inability to be scared by books. if you are sick of hearing me say this, we must have been friends for a while, so instead of being bored by my repetition, you should be grateful we are so close.
as far as scary books go, this one was one of the better ones. some horror novels are all about the payoff, the splatter, the quicktime monster jump-out. this one is more about building atmosphere to better get you when your guard is let down. and the writing is really solid. this is set in maryland, in a small town in a valley prone to devastating floods situated between mountains that cause the sunrise to appear later, and the sunset earlier. it is one of those small towns that traps you, even when you think you have left it for good. and it is slowly dying—there are boarded-up buildings and factories, the farmland isn’t what it used to be, the river has been poisoned by run-off and three-eyed toads are not uncommon. and now something very odd is happening.
it begins with an infestation of bats.
nothing to see here, just us innocent bats. just a strange blip in nature’s bounty…
but then the livestock-mutilations begin. and that’s never a good thing. either you have satanists, or vampires, or chupacabra. and we are all sick of vampires, right?? (although i do think there are still some good ones being written, like Burden Kansas) but i promise you, and the book-synopsis promises you, this is not a vampire story.
and you know how it goes, “first they came for the cattle…” and then the young boys start going missing. and then the adults. and people start to catch glimpses of both their newly-, and their long-deceased loved ones. das unheimliche, indeed.
i appreciated the build in this one. he really took his time with the suspense-elements, escalating the tension ever so slowly, and creating the perfect trap.
my only complaint is a problem that is entirely my own, in my reading and visualization abilities.View Spoiler »
and while i slept just fine last night (sigh), it was definitely a creepy book, and people who are more susceptible to horror novels (sigh) will probably have to leave the lights on.
do it.
read my book reviews on goodreads
