The Devil Crept In

Starred review from November 21, 2016
Lauded author Ahlborn (Within These Walls) delivers a beautiful and deftly wrought horror story of mothers, sons, and the delicate bond between cousins. Ten-year-old Stevie Clark of Deer Valley, Ore., is a word-salad stutterer with one friend in the world: his older cousin Jude. When Jude goes missing, Stevie is the only one who takes it seriously, and he knows the creepy house in the woods must be involved. Despite an uninterested town and his own fear, Stevie embarks on an investigation that convinces him there’s a monster lurking in the woods. The real horror comes when Jude abruptly returns and Stevie must accept that he may still have lost his friend. With sympathetic attention paid to the relationships between overwhelmed mothers and the sons they can’t save from evil, and prose that elegantly evokes tension while illustrating Stevie’s rich inner world, readers will be engrossed and thrilled right through to the chewy final twist.

Narrator Eric Michael Summerer expertly captures a troubled child's nightmare reality. He builds a lingering sense of dread that turns this slow burn of a horror novel into a taut and addictive listening experience. Stevie Clark's cousin, Jude, has vanished, and after three days, the community is losing hope he'll be found. Desperate to find Jude, Stevie begins to uncover stories about missing pets and a murdered boy, and begins to realize that something horrific is lurking in his small town. Summerer grounds listeners in Stevie's reality, performing each distinct character the way he or she sounds in his young mind. Playing up Stevie's bewilderment and growing panic, Summerer keeps listeners thoroughly unsettled right up to the final, stunning, twist in this superb story. B.E.K. � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine