Henry Thorne is a clever, sensitive 10-year-old who has already been through more than most children his age after the death of his parents. He’s living with his uncle and aunt, trying to find a new way of being, when he is kidnapped by a gang of very nasty men for the millions in insurance money paid out on his father’s death. They take him to an isolated house deep in the woods while they await the meeting of their demands. But Henry, who has always been more attuned to the world than most, knows that his kidnappers aren’t the only danger lurking in the forest.
LA-based writer Philip Fracassi’s A Child Alone With Strangers (Talos, £20) has all the elements of a police procedural, as the FBI desperately hunt for Henry while the boy does his best to stay alive. But it’s also a perfectly pitched horror novel, visceral and terrifying, delving deep into an eldritch world that sits alongside our own. It reminds me of early Stephen King – It; Firestarter; The Shining – but Fracassi also brings a depth of understanding to his monsters, human and otherwise, that makes A Child Alone With Strangers deeply moving. I only picked this up because of a recommendation from the excellent horror podcast Talking Scared. I am now forcing it on everyone I know. Highly recommended.
