Small Town Horror by Ronald Malfi – Review

Published: June 4, 2024

Publisher: Titan Books

Series: N/A

Genre: Horror

Pages: 400 (Kindle)

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:
Five childhood friends are forced to confront their own dark past as well as the curse placed upon them in this horror masterpiece from the bestselling author of Come with Me.

Maybe this is a ghost story…

Andrew Larimer thought he left the past behind. But when he receives a late-night phone call from an old friend, he finds he has no choice but to return home, and to confront the memories—and the horror—of a night, years ago, that changed everything.

For Andrew and his friends, the past is not dead, and the curse that has befallen them now threatens to destroy all that they’ve become.

One dark secret…

One small-town horror…

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Small Town Horror is my first Ronald Malfi book and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed. I was super curious about Black River Orchard when it was released in 2023, but the sheer page count was somewhat intimidating. I’m a novice in the horror genre, so the shorter books are more appealing at the moment and Small Town Horror clocks in at a whopping 400 pages. Very doable.

This coastal horror follows Andrew Larimer, a rising star in the NYC law scene as he returns to his hometown of Kingsport, Maryland to face his past. You see, Andrew has four friends who still live in the fading town of Kingsport and one has just called him up, desperate for his help and referencing something that happened during their teen years. He reluctantly heads home, only to find himself embroiled in an investigation into the disappearance of his friend Dale’s wife. The most unsettling part is that Dale, Meach, and even Tig seem to be haunted by the specter of a boy named Robert Graves.

It’s not difficult to conclude that they were involved in something tragic that happened to this boy, but at first the events are carefully skirted around. When it’s finally revealed it’s somehow anticlimactic – a horrible accident and a combination of fear and guilt that lead the five friends to abandon the scene. This is a spooky read and I found it delightfully difficult to tell if the supernatural elements were real or induced by drugs or the paranoia and guilt of the characters. 

I was surprised by how engrossed I was in Small Town Horror and I thought it did a great job analyzing all the things that can truly make a small town awful. Cover-ups, cruelty and ostracizing ‘weird’ people, secrets on top of secrets. Ultimately, this is a story about how guilt can eat away at a person, eroding sanity and breeding a paranoia dangerous enough to kill. This is a complex, layered story that kept me turning pages late into the night and at one point I audibly gasped at one particular reveal. I think it’s safe to say this won’t be my last book by Ronald Malfi.