DEBUT This debut offers a slice of folk horror with a truckload of family trauma. Small-town police chief Rachel Kennan throws herself into her work after the disappearance of her young son. Her husband, Finn, is a less-than-successful writer descending into an addiction to alcohol. Their individual grief makes both parents unable to help their daughters cope and leaves Rachel unable to help her town deal with a mysterious force that’s taking its children, along with the Kennans’ daughters, into the woods. Gunn begins the novel with some slim characterizations, particularly among Rachel’s seemingly interchangeable deputies, but then reveals more about the rather toxic family dynamic between Rachel and Finn, whom Rachel blames for their son’s disappearance. Add that dynamic to the town’s mistrust of Rachel’s family and the supernatural evil waiting in the woods, and Gunn creates a combustible mixture as volatile as nitroglycerin. Readers will keep turning the pages to see whether all the Kennans survive.
VERDICT Gunn knows how to generate tension, and this trip into the woods should enchant fans of Stephen King’s The Outsider as well as readers of supernatural thrillers.
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