The Chill

I don't think I realized I was missing a horror novel about dams and reservoirs, but apparently I was. Scott Carson takes an interesting idea - the drowned town that is replaced by a reservoir and builds an impressively crafted supernatural tale around it. In some ways the supernatural here is only used to enhance the feeling of mounting peril - they could be seen as a metaphor for mundane things and that underlying ambiguity gives the story its power.

A significant proportion of the worlds population must live downstream of dams. Whilst dam bursts are incredibly rare they are terrifying events, that really are not brought into literature that much. The Chill focusses on a fictitious reservoir within the very real Catskill water catchment system for New York. Funnily enough I had just recently watched a YouTube video on this very system so was already a little familiar with this somewhat niche and esoteric subject. Here we a c0nfronted by the events leading up to and the aftermath of a dam collapse, driven in part by the myths of an old village swamped beneath the reservoir.

I thoroughly enjoyed this one - it read a lot quicker than its apparent length. Always a good sign in my mind! An intriguing subject for terror, and one that probably more people should be aware of!