Disappearance at Devil's Rock
Ratings30
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings30
Average rating3.8
Late one summer night, Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that every mother fears: her 13-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished in the woods of a local park. Riddled with worry, pain, and guilt, Elizabeth is wholly unprepared for the strange series of events that follow. As the search grows more desperate, and the implications of what happened become more haunting and sinister, no one is prepared for the shocking truth about that night.
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This year I challenged my partner to nominate five books of hers that I should read. She tends to read more towards the horror side of the spectrum whilst I tend to favour Fantasy and Sci-Fi. The first book that she nominated was this one - Disappearance at Devil's Rock. Straight out I can say that I was impressed.
This one is a bit of a slow burn. It deals with the disappearance of a child and the agony of not knowing what has happened. This is some powerful stuff. To me, where the book really excels is in the day to day mundanity of living that still goes on whilst the world feels like it is crashing down around you in a situation such as this. The slow gradual reveal of what happened feels very true to many a missing persons case. This slow grinding pace really sets up the payoff for the reveal at the end.
This is psychological horror - any supernatural elements are negligible and easily explained away. This leads to a horrifying believability to the story. Ultimately the biggest monsters are usually humans and this does not back away from that truth.
A final note, the edition that I had the pleasure of reading was the fabulous SST one. The artwork and production quality was fantastic!
Wavered between three and four stars because of the ending—as in the last few paragraphs.
Decided to go with three because the author, in a follow-up essay included with the book, fully spoils the surprise ending to the film The Wicker Man! So yeah, do not read the footnotes to the essay if you have not seen the films he mentions. Glad I wasn't spoiled!
Friends keep dark secrets
shadow men skulk in the night
#FindTommy.
Well, this was a long read. I mean, no, it isn't, it just took me long enough.
The story itself is intriguing, it is well-written, but it should have been maybe 100 pages shorter. The baginning and ending are powerful, but there are long stretches of padding and repetition in the middle, which is too bad, because the book loses momentum now and then.
But: it wasn't bad at all, and it also mangaes to surprise.
