Kill Creek

The opening pages of Scott Thomas’s debut novel, Kill Creek (2017) are likely to produce two immediate impressions: the prose is beautifully rendered, especially for a first novel, and the for a haunted house, the Finch House near Lawrence, Kansas, appears to be benign although a “monstrosity” of “three stories… at least six thousand square feet, maybe more” sitting on “a good quarter acre” in the middle of the prairie. “It was not built on unholy ground. It was not home to a witch or warlock. In 1859, a solitary man constructed it with his own two hands and the occasional help from friends… the many rooms within the grand house were filled with a passionate love, albeit one shared in secret, a whisper between two hearts.” As readers continue, one of these elements changes and the other does not. What doesn’t’ change is Thomas’s rich, flowing, literary prose. What does change is the seeming innocence of Finch House, made famous by a hack writer’s alleged non-fiction work, Phantoms of the Prairie: A True Story of Supernatural Terror written in the eighties—a book “short on details and long on atmosphere.”Justin Wainwright has created a smash Internet site of popular culture. Keeping the on-line site a number one destination for users takes creativity and originality. His latest plan involves a familiar horror trope with a twist: without revealing all the details to them, Wainwright wants access to four famous horror writers for a two-day interview for which he will pay each one of them one hundred thousand dollars. His plan is to live-stream them being interviewed in the Finch House—no tricks, no gimmicks, only he and his assistant, Kate, filming; Wainwright doesn’t even believe Finch House is haunted himself. The writers include Sam McGarver who has known real horror in his past which he refuses to talk about and who is fighting writer’s block, hasn’t produced a new work in years, and is “hiding out” teaching university classes about horror and “other people’s books.” T. C. Moore’s work is tremendously popular, “raw and primal” it combines explicit horror and sex—and pain. She is disgusted the film being made of her latest novel is removing most of the grisly portions of her last novel and changing it into a romance. Daniel Slaughter is a popular Christian writer producing mainly forgettable horror books for teenagers which he likes to think “teach a lesson through entertainment” and his popularity is dwindling as more and more Christian parents begin to disapprove of his subject matter. Sebastian Cole is the senior member of the quartet, who has been writing for over three generations and has influenced untold other writers including Sam McGarver, but whose legacy is fast becoming that of a member of the “literary royalty” rather than a still popular writer. For all four, Wainwright’s offer is an opportunity to renew or solidify their reputations with the reading public.Although it gets revealed Finch House has a history of a deplorable and sordid incident and a bad reputation among locals, “there were no documented occurrences, no unexplained phenomena recorded by giddy parapsychologists.” Unlike Shirley Jackson’s infamous Hill House, Finch House appears to be considerably less sinister. Still, Thomas does take a few pointers from Jackson’s playbook, however. Not only does he bring together a diverse group of individuals to stay at the Finch House to be interviewed, but they all have secrets—baggage they bring with them from their earlier lives. Like Jackson, Thomas builds suspense slowly, allowing Finch House to breathe, as it were, before becoming fully awake, allowing its evil to manifest itself.Midway through Kill Creek, Thomas takes his story in an unexpected direction; into a new, at first subtle course before those who spend the night in Finch House slowly come to the realization of what is happening to them—led off by Sam McGarver—and they all decide upon an ill-fated, but essential strategy. Although there are faint echoes of the influence of Stephen King’s justly popular and influential The Shining (1977) during this portion of Thomas’s work, readers are most likely to feel the presence of Robert Marasco’s distinctive haunted house novel, Burnt Offerings (1973; reprinted by Valancourt Books in 2015) lurking behind the scenes.The horror of Finch House escalates rapidly during the last third or more of Kill Creek, as mystery and questions multiply faster than answers are provided, and a full-scale manifestation of horror and dismaying deaths befall the characters. The final chapters of the book are a true tour de force and Thomas leaves readers with an ominous twist at the end. For a first novel (although in the book’s acknowledgements Thomas states the first draft of the novel was written “more than ten years ago” with numerous revisions later), Kill Creek is an extremely well written book with a deliberate pace, realistic characters, and powerful, memorable scenes of genuine dread. The author displays an acute awareness of the multiple kinds of horror which exist within the genre as well. At almost twice the length of Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Kill Creek easily enters the ranks of accomplished haunted house stories and given the recent plethora of them, such is not an easy feat to accomplish.

Kill Creek is a classic haunted house story and a good one. It tells the tale of 4 horror authors who agree to a publicity stunt where they are to spend Halloween night in a remote and very much haunted house. What could possibly go wrong? This book is well written and suspenseful. I’m not normally a fan of books written about a writer (or multiple writers in this case) but in Kill Creek the writers were so different, the fact that they had one thing in common just helped to tie it it all together . Definitely memorable and well worth a read. 4/5

I'm certainly a picky reader. I acknowledge this freely and openly. While I usually do a good job of selecting the kinds of books I'm going to enjoy (and so seldom write particularly scathing reviews), I'm usually able to identify enough flaws that I can't quite justify a five-star review (which I reserve for works of near perfection). And horror, being my "home genre," sometimes enters at a bit of a disadvantage. While it is undoubtedly my favorite genre, I also have already read so much of it that I know its tricks. I've seen its tropes. It takes a lot to surprise me. I point all of this out to illustrate how extraordinary it is that this book DID surprise me and DID earn one of my rare five-star reviews.One of the first questions people might ask when evaluating a horror novel is whether or not it's scary. For me, that's always been a difficult question to answer, because I've never had the experience of being so scared by a book that I sleep with the lights on. There are those that have disturbed me on some visceral level, others that have instigated a long night of existential introspection, and some that have just delivered a good old-fashioned gross-out. But none of them have ever really scared me. And, to be completely honest, neither did this one. I will say, however, that the author clearly has a masterful eye for dramatic tension and suspense. Though I wasn't actively scared by the book, I was certainly enthralled enough to become fully invested in the characters' plight. I can also confirm that, while the book didn't scare me, it indeed has given some chills to some acquaintances of mine (some of whom, like me, are pretty tough to rattle).However, despite its success in building tension throughout the book, that only earns it a passing grade. The five stars come from the other features of the book. In particular, this book reads in many ways like a love letter to the horror genre. I noticed both that this is the author's first novel and that his past credits include a substantial amount of work for children. That might seem like an unlikely source for a "horror fan's horror novel," but it's clear that Scott Thomas knows his stuff. The book is populated by characters who write horror and their discussions cover a lot of the theory behind what makes the genre great. Even better, though the book itself is firmly rooted in the gothic haunted house tradition, it shows a lot of love and respect for all of the various sub-genres, all the way from "Christian horror" to "extreme sexual horror" through discussions between characters representing these divergent disciplines within the genre. For someone like me whose taste in horror runs the gamut from the quiet and psychological to the bloody and extreme, this is a lovely touch. It's great that a "middle of the road" book (neither too subtle nor too extreme) can show such respect for the other approaches.Where the book really shines, though, is in the development of the characters. The book is populated by horror authors (and a couple of other characters to fill out the cast). As I mentioned above, these characters represent various dimensions of the horror genre, and the interplay between them is amazing to read. These are people from complete opposite corners of life, philosophy, religion, but who remain unified by their genre. They don't always get along, and the debates between them are extraordinary for horror fans to read, but what's far more extraordinary is how the author has written a fairly large number of fully-developed characters, about all of whom the reader comes to care. To be sure, some of them didn't seem particularly likable at the beginning. But as the characters get to know each other, the reader also gets to know the characters, and even if they're not "your kind" of people, you'll find yourself respecting their perspective and their individuality by the time you hit the half-way mark in the book.And the half-way mark is the point at which the action really starts to take off. Some might complain that the first half of the book is too slow to make for an effective horror novel. I disagree. I maintain that the slower-burn throughout the first half of the book allows the characters time to establish themselves in the reader's mind, and allows the setting for the horror a chance to shine before plot-driven elements take over. In fact, though I liked the whole book, I have to say the first half was probably my favorite half of the book.In terms of plot, the story begins like a cliche: four horror writers gather in a haunted house for an interview, but end up in a situation of horror. That could describe a large number of books and stories. There's nothing wrong with the familiar per se, but it's always nice when the author can do something original with the familiar, as is the case in this book. Events do not proceed in the order nor the time frame I expected them to, and I suspect that's a large part of how the book maintained its dramatic tension. There are also some fairly original ideas in terms of the nature of the "evil" in this story. I won't offer any spoilers here, but I will say that, while I've seen similar ideas explored in books and film in the past, I've never seen exactly the same idea, nor have these other explorations been quite as effective or in-depth in their execution. To begin with an already-rare idea and expand it into something I've never quite seen before despite my decades of reading in the genre is quite an impressive feat.At the end of the day, I simply don't have any major complaints about this book. I found it was exactly what this old horror fan wanted, and it's been a definite highlight in my reading for the year. I highly recommend it, particularly if you're already a fan of the genre.

Absolutely enjoyed this book! Highly recommend

Mi hija feliz

Una stella non per la storia in sé che non ho potuto nemmeno leggere, quanto per il prodotto arrivato distrutto.

This is great, a haunted house story that actually manages to say something original about the trope. The tension builds well, and the story grips in a way that means late nights and missed bus stops.

Well, I always love a haunted house story and this has that, but I hate it when entities follow you, and that's what happens here. I know, creepy. A good, haunting story that's not all set in one place. Good stuff.