The Handyman

September 25, 2017
Little (The Collection) wraps a fascinating supernatural mystery in a suffocating cocoon of horror. Daniel Martin is a typical Southern California kid in the 1980s, until his parents decide to purchase a vacation home in rural Arizona. Their new house will be constructed from a prefab kit—and the strange handyman across the street offers to build it for a low price. Little do Daniel and his innocent family realize that everyone who comes into contact with weird and evil Frank Watkins meets malevolence sooner or later. After Frank moves away, the corpse of a child is found in the basement of his old home. Shortly thereafter, Daniel’s brother dies gruesomely. And that’s just the beginning. As the story unfolds, readers see that the evil Frank causes has popped up across the country and over decades. With each taut chapter, Little skillfully reels in the reader, climaxing in an oddly believable paranormal finale. Little’s horrifying tale will entice even readers who are not fans of the genre, and stay with them for a long time to come.

The strength of Chris Ciulla's performance lies in his ability to ground this increasingly macabre story in genuine and relatable emotions. Though Daniel Martin was only a boy when he first met Frank--the neighbor who built his family's summer house--he knew immediately there was something very wrong with the man. But no one could imagine the truth about Frank, or the secrets he concealed in every shoddy, unstable house he left in his wake. In recounting Daniel's quest to hunt Frank down, Ciulla makes his fear, nostalgia, sorrow, and hatred visceral. He conveys Frank's own voice with an eerie combination of charm and brutality that is both chilling and compelling. Listeners will be gripped by every horrible discovery and gruesome turn. B.E.K. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine