Wicked Things

Freelance insurance investigator Jack Carlson is looking into a rash of accidental deaths in the rural town of Winship. When he reaches the Norman Rockwellesque community, he finds that people there aren’t just dying, they’re disappearing as well. Soon Carlson is awash with more questions than he can handle: who murdered the town’s insurance salesman and his secretary? why did the town doctor commit suicide right in front of him? who, or what, is the mysterious Order of St. Michael? And what’s with the town’s unearthly, late-night glow? Carlson is an appealing creation, and Tessier has dropped him into the middle of an intriguing twilight zone scenario. Unfortunately, once Tessier sets his world spinning, he’s unable to hold it all together, and he ends the story without revealing answers to any of the questions he’s so painstakingly raised. Included is an unrelated novella, Scramberg U.S.A.; it tells of a young hoodlum’s revenge against the town that done him wrong, another interesting tale that gets away from its author in the end. The result, Tessier’s first original novel in almost 10 years, makes for an addictive but unsatisfying read. (June)