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Famous horror and mystery author Victor Cartuso escapes the pressures of big city life and moves next door to the Malone family. Ben Malone, the proprietor of the local Shell station, his wife, Amy, and teenage son, Jimmy, know everyone in their small community. Ben is the perfect host for Victor when the author begins to drop by at day's end to share a chat over brews. Victor absorbs lore about life in the rural county from Ben, and Ben gains an exclusive window into Victor's writing life. Happily, both men agree about many aspects of modern life, such as the big fuss TSA makes over air travel after 9/11.
Ben wonders why he witnesses Victor with a sturdy rope noose on his back porch one day but doesn't ask. It isn't his business, after all. Ben supposes it must be some bit of writing research until life in "the Bluff" takes a sudden dark turn. One of Jimmy's best friends is found dead, a presumed suicide. Then another friend in Jimmy's high school clique, a girl, is found dead. Will his son Jimmy be next? Ben can only do some unthinkable sleuthing to find out after an even stranger visitor arrives in town.
Fans of Nordic noir and a straightforward, minimalist literary style are sure to appreciate this paranormal mystery. Imbued with a subtle yet definite sense of place through dialogue, the ambiance of small-town safety and camaraderie steadily amp up into heightened anxiety and pure terror. Klein quietly steers the tale to an explosive Stephen King-worthy crescendo when a creepy battle between light and darkness erupts behind closed doors in Cedar Bluff, Minnesota.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review