Synopsis:
There are locations in this world where the light doesn’t seem to reach. Where, no matter how illuminated the place might be, shadows creep in too strongly to fight back.
A suspiciously empty gas station rest stop in the middle of the night, littered with googley eyes… A doctor’s office, where a bottle of booze and a tear-stained folder wait on the desk… A tech millionaire’s haunted kitchen… A Bible-quoting ventriloquist’s dingy apartment… A yoga retreat in the middle of the desert, silent except for the screaming…
These locations and more are your destination and bestselling author Nat Cassidy will be your guide. Featuring the Bram Stoker Award-nominated, critically acclaimed novella Rest Stop (one of Esquire’s Best Horror Books of 2024), along with a number of other original short stories, some which have never been published before, I Know A Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours is a travelogue down twisting side streets and through alleyways where the darkness has eyes… and teeth.
Let’s hope you make it home in one piece.
Review:
It was my intent to read Nat Cassidy’s “I Know A Place,” as I do all short story collections- in increments, sneak a story here and there, perhaps to cleanse the palette between full length novels. I had a plan. Well, I opened this nearly 500 page book, and I can’t fully account for what happened next, but I lost all decorum, and self-control, and read all thirteen of these stories breathlessly, back to back to back, until I’d finished it in its entirety. Nat Cassidy has achieved here, the near impossible feat of a short story collection that is consistently great. No duds, no fillers. I had my favourites, naturally, but none left me dissatisfied. Whether handling haunted pornography, simply admiring the lunar eclipse- first in 50 years, topping the charts in Liverpool, 1957, or knocking them back in a doctor’s office, I would follow Nat Cassidy anywhere- not in a weird way, to clarify. A rare collection that you will want to inhale, not out of obligation or through determination, but because every story promises the next will be just as excellent, “I Know A Place,” is out from Shortwave May 5th, so book in your annual leave. It is exemplary.
I have a lot of things I’d like to vomit onto this word document, so let’s not dawdle. Cassidy opens with “Rest Stop.” I don’t want to spend too much time discussing this one because I already gave it the full treatment here, but I can confirm it is still nasty and cloying, humming with a gross insistence and bristling with googly-eyed wrongness. For a novella named “Rest Stop,” which I take to mean, a pause, a break, a breather, it’s ironic that this reread set such a breathless tempo, built such momentum that I was still turning the pages like a madman 300 pages later.
That’s followed up by a sinister little story called “The Unluckiest Girl,” which is the first of two “meet cute,” stories. They were favourites. This first one follows Ted who is sitting at a desolate bar one night in 1974, when he meets that titular unlucky girl. It has that gut-punch implied ending that tends to come with the most vicious of short stories, a foul implication that occurs not on the page but in our horrified arithmetic. Whilst we’re here, that second meet cute story, “The Scariest Thing,” which is somehow even more disconcerting, but almost nice if you’re an optimist, is great too. If you enjoyed “Rekt,” by Alex Gonzalez, this little gem proves the same point- that the internet can be a dangerous place, and (mostly off of vibe really) one of its characters reminded me of Gonzalez’s protagonist. Irrespective of the outcome, I will now be removing myself from the Junji Ito subreddit.
It’s so hard to pick highlights amidst such an excellent bunch, but “Generation,” published by Shortwave previously as a Cassidy Catacomb, was up there for certain. It follows Dr. Amanda Eveson MD OB/GYN, who for a reason best left undisclosed by me, has had a whole lot of domestics in her office as of late. There’s a weird novella by Carlton Mellick III called “Glass Children,” which came to mind whilst reading.
Another I enjoyed immensely was “Come.” I won’t discuss this one in polite company, but seeing as it’s only you, I’ll go on. I kid. This one follows Tyler, Dez and our narrator get their sleuth on following the suspicious suicide of a boy in their high school. It’s not the first suicide the school has had following a leaked sex tape filmed in one of the labatories back in the 90s. This one is about hormones and adolescence and sex, and how memory can taint and stain, latch onto a room, an object, a grainy piece of footage passed between horny high schoolers. It’s uncomfortable, and a great story, with a particularly chilling denouement.
And there’s more that I loved: The Lunar Eclipse, Jubilee Junction, Nice… the list goes on. If you really insisted I pick a favourite though, twisted my arm, it would perhaps be “Run For Your Life.” This is flawless, genuinely. I’m nit-picking here- still nothing. I am aware of how high a bar I am setting (sorry Nat) but confident that if your taste is anything like mine, this story will hurdle over it with ease. I’m not sure how widely watched the film “Yesterday,” is, but it’s a rom-com that follows a struggling musician who wakes up to find he is the only person who remembers The Beatles, and parlays his recollection into fame. “Run For Your Life,” operates on a similar premise but far more engineered and sinister, far more up my alley. There’s commentary upon fate and the unsatisfiable nature of envy- always wanting a little more than what you’ve got, as well as a love letter not just to The Beatles, but to good music. A sharp story.
Cassidy was my first five star of 2025 with “When The Wolf Comes Home,” so it’s really very pleasing to me that we’re here again at the start of 2026, this time armed with a collection. I am sparing with the word perfect, especially when it comes to collections, because it would be almost preposterous for a series of short stories to retain such excellence. The only exception, since early 2024 has been Lisa Tuttle’s “A Nest of Nightmares.” “I Know A Place,” sits comfortably beside it, company it has earned. And, if after all this effort, enthusiasm, borderline evangelism, you remain unconvinced, then by all means, outsource your trust- King has said his piece already, and I’m happy to stand behind him on this one.
Leave a Reply