BAD THINGS

written by Michael Marshall

published by William Morrow

ISBN-10: 006143440X

ISBN-13: 978-0061434402

Reviewed by Adam Armstrong

7.11.09

If you can put this book down, you need to re-evaluate your tastes.

John Henderson’s son is nowhere to be found. John and Carol scramble around their newly bought million-dollar home searching for him. When they find him by the lake he just dies, for no reason. John sells the home and leaves his wife and infant child. He takes up a job as a waiter in Oregon. Three years later he gets an email that simply says, ‘I know what happened.’ John travels back to find that what happened to his son may not be all that uncommon in the town of Black Ridge. And if he doesn’t do something soon, there is a much worse fate awaiting his remaining child.

Edge of your seat suspense that so rarely comes along in modern fiction. Under the pseudonym of Marshall, Smith is able to take an action/suspense/mystery story and sprinkle it with just enough dark supernatural stuff to make your skin crawl. This by far is the best book he has put out since dropping the Smith. Any fan from the early days of his short horror fiction can see that he is still pulling out the goods. I tried to read this in one sitting; I so didn’t want to stop.

Buy it, finish it, and pass it around: 5 out of 5