Darkness on the Edge of Town

May 1, 2019
This latest tie-in novel for the wildly popular Netflix series (after Gwenda Bond's Suspicious Minds, 2019) explores the past of Officer Jim Hopper during his time as an NYPD detective in the late '70s. In the book, which is framed as an explanation of his past to his adopted daughter Jane (formerly known as Eleven ), Vietnam veteran Hopper recounts a case in which he and his then-new partner Rosario Delgado investigated a string of mysterious murders in which the victims were ritually disfigured and what turn out to be Zener cards were left next to the bodies. Delgado and Hopper are drawn into a mystery with roots in government-funded ESP experiments, the Vietnam War, Satanic cults, and a gang leader with a mysterious and dominating presence. While Christopher's novel could stand on its own independent of the TV series, without the wider context of the Netflix show backing it up the narrative may not stand out from the average supernaturally-tinged police procedural. Recommended primarily for fans of Stranger Things who are interested in exploring another corner of its universe.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)