Wednesday, June 15, 2022

#18: Devil House by John Darnielle

A true crime writer decides to move into a house where a "Satanic Panic" killing happened years before, and explores his own past while unspooling the case in John Darnielle's Devil House.

I thought Darnielle's first book, Wolf in White Van, was really notable, and his second American Harvester readable but ultimately unsatisfying; unfortunately for me Devil House leaned towards the second.

Darnielle is a good writer, and a pair of killings is spookily set forth, but I felt the ending was a bit of a cheat; or to be more generous to Darnielle, he might have been going for something I didn't quite grasp.

Ultimately I would say well-drawn characters and unsettling situations, but a hairpin plot twist at the end left me flat.  

I still will look for his next novel, and always find him interesting.

I checked this book out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.

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