Desert Places by Blake Crouch

I got turned on to Blake Crouch while reading J.A. Konrath/Jack Kilborn's array of extreme horror novels.  He collaborated with Blake Crouch on Serial and after I plowed through all the books he had to offer, I knew Crouch was next for me.

Desert Places is the first in a series of Andrew Thomas novels, Thomas being a writer and the main character in these books.  Desert Places starts out hard and fast -- popular horror novelist Andrew Thomas checks his mail one evening to find an interesting piece of correspondence.  It states that there is a woman buried on his property, covered in his blood and killed with a knife from his house.  At first, Andrew dismisses this as a crazy piece of fan mail, but decides to check it out, just for fun.

What he finds is that there actually is a woman buried on his property, and as he follows the other instructions in the letter, he digs himself a deeper and deeper hole.  He meets the writer of the letter, and finds out that this is no psychotic fan.  This person's interest is even more complicated and close to home.  The two will go on a journey...even when they are not together.

Although not as truly sick as Kilborn/Konrath's works, this book was exciting and demented, and left me wanting more.  There were some truly scary parts of the book (the HI MOM! one being the creepiest for me)  You'll be glad to know that there are at least two more Thomas books, which extend this exciting story.

















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