Review: Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi
Page Count: 392
Price: $17.99 (paperback), $27.99 (hardcover)
ISBN: 9781803365657
Publisher: Titan Books
Ronald Malfi weaves a brilliant web of guilt, falsehoods, buried (or drowned) truths and, of course, ghosts and witchcraft in his recent novel Small Town Horror. This novel draws readers through a meticulously crafted mystery steeped in seafoam and brine, and leaves them hanging onto every unanswered question and unearthed memory.
The story follows Andrew Larimer, an attorney rising in notoriety at a New York law firm, as he is dragged back to his hometown, a tiny town on the Chesapeake bay, at the request of one of his childhood friends. There, he is reunited with his old friend group, as the five of them are forced to reckon with the consequences of a secret they’ve held for twenty years. The terrible things that follow are caused by a mix of guilt-bidden lies and betrayal, the horrors of small town America, and an ever worsening barrage of chilling and unexplainable events.
Malfi has an unfaltering command of the tone and atmosphere of his story; he skillfully conveys not only the concrete details of his setting, but shows it through the characters’ appearances and actions. This is best exemplified by the staggering midsummer heat that hangs as a miasma over Kingsport; it seeps into the characters, beading their descriptions with sweat, and intensifying their misery as traumatic events continue to unfold: “I parked my rental car in front of the arrangement of decorative buoys and stepped out into a wall of thick, humid air, so tangible it was like walking into a volleyball net.”
The flashbacks Malfi uses are also incredibly well executed, sections of present and past alternate almost as if in conversation, and the placement of flashbacks holds the reader’s interest as they are forced to wait for the answer to their newest burning question. The characters’ development and characterization hold consistent across time skips, and all of them boast vibrant and distinct presences whenever they enter a scene. Malfi’s prose and diction are easily approachable but at the same time remain rich, intricate, and splendidly moody. Andrew’s voice carries well with the use of first person perspective, and changes in focus to other characters were surprisingly unobtrusive, though they remain from Andrew’s perspective: “Around the same time I received the phone call from Dale Walls, a man named Matthew Meacham opened his eyes to a tomblike darkness. His body quaked, his mind raced, and his skin burned.”
This story ultimately has one significant weak point, that being the ending. The plot seems to crumble under the weight of the mystery and its intricacies, and the momentum of the story somewhat crumbles with it. Certain (particularly supernatural) elements don’t receive the explanation the story sets them up to need, and the last couple of chapters fizzle to a conclusion that doesn’t seem to fit the dazzling, firework-show intrigue carried by the novel up to that point.
That said, Small Town Horror is still a spectacular read and arguably essential for anyone who enjoyed Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass or on occasion finds themself longing for (or haunted by, there’s no judgement here) the lighthouses, buoy bells, and briny din of the East coast.
Small Town Horror is available for purchase on Titan Books’ website, along with many of his other thrillers and horror novels.
Meet the blogger:
RAY KALLEMAYN is a Creative Writing student at Hamline University and the Chief of Design for Untold Magazine. They are passionate about illustration, houseplants, bartending, and fantasy worldbuilding. When they’re not writing, they’re probably thinking about writing, watching The Thing (1982), playing RPGS, or waiting for the newest Lego Botanical Collection set to come out.
