Synopsis
A teenager explores the darkness hidden within his hometown in this spellbinding supernatural thriller from bestselling author Scott Carson.
For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer.
Marshall Miller’s internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes until a terrifying moment that turns public praise for his sharp observations and uncanny memory into accusations of lying and imperiling the case. His detective mentor withdraws, friends and family worry and whisper, and Marshall alone understands that the darkness visiting his town this summer goes far beyond a single crime. Now his task is to explain it—and himself.
Lost Man’s Lane is a coming-of-age tale of terror.
Review
Lost Man’s Lane by Scott Carson manages to wrangle a plethora of genres, themes, and influences into a succinct, gripping story of a boy working not only to find a criminal but his own self. Sixteen-year-old Marshall Miller gets pulled over for speeding on an uncharacteristically warm February day. While this interaction may seem to be mundane in nature, the truth behind this exchange proves to be nothing but. This seemingly inconsequential action changes the trajectory of Marshall’s young life as a young woman in Bloomington, Indiana is missing, and Marshall may just be the key to finding her abductor. A superficially grounded story, the threads of reality we all know begin to slowly, minutely unravel as Marshall wanders down an otherworldly path in the name of justice and truth.
The easiest way to sell me a novel these days is to mention coming-of-age themes and a murder mystery. Without fail, I will be the first in line for any book of this nature, and this was precisely how Lost Man’s Lane was pitched. Perhaps this is due to my recent reading of Stephen King’s It, perhaps it’s just the way I’m wired as a reader, but in my humble opinion, there’s no such thing as too many stories such as this. Scott Carson crafts a wickedly wonderful, adventurous tale of growth through childhood into adulthood that manages to capture the magic of youth and the promise of independence even in the face of fear.
Marshall Miller is a very loveable, relatable character by which we view the town of Bloomington and its various uncommon occurrences. At sixteen, he yearns for that sweet feeling of adulthood while managing his budding maturity. Without a father, Marshall remains close to his mother while still wondering what the other 50% of his DNA says about his identity. Of course, he has friends and other interests, but namely, his neighbor Kerri promises the most authentic connection. She’s an off-the-charts intelligent, mature girl who rivals Marshall’s endearing immaturity and aloofness. The sense of trust that exists between them as depicted in Carson’s writing is the rare kind of unwavering connection found in childhood friends who are so deeply bonded that the confines of unreality cannot cause fault. Their dynamic is so remarkably enjoyable as we witness their relationship wax and wane through the months of strangeness in Bloomington.
While much of this story begins as a straightforward detective story, various aspects of the supernatural begin to appear oh so subtly throughout the course of the novel. The horror implemented by Carson builds upon itself in a way that doesn’t force its hand; much of the terror Marshall experiences is of the realities of growing older. His own search for his identity, the fear of losing his friends, and the uneasiness of the unknown on the other side of graduation loom large, in addition to the danger of a predator on the loose. Marshall’s unique, personal role in the investigation into this disappearance provides an intriguing scope through which we view this crime and raises the stakes immensely. Carson also relies on a greater sense of growing paranoia and fear running rampant in the late 90s as Y2K approaches and much is unknown about the new millennia. In combination, these various aspects of peculiarity function as an unwavering sense of “other,” driving Marshall’s search for justice into overdrive.
Most notably, Carson’s ability to bottle-up the essence of bitter-sweet longing that the act of remembering evokes cements Marshall’s story among the best coming-of-age tales I’ve found. Within the first few pages of this novel, the tone is set that the past has a way of returning whether you’re ready for a visit or not. Sure, the idea that the past haunts us as a ghost is not a novel idea, but when a story is executed in a way such as this, there’s a certain poignancy that eradicates any sense of repetition. This is the type of immersive writing that teleports you to your own childhood, makes you reflect on your own time balancing the thin precipice of youth and maturity, and examine the hard truths of that very specific time in your life.
“To develop a taste for nostalgia that you didn’t have before, as your realize that you’re going to have plenty of occasions to stare into the past whether you want to or not. Time has a way of forcing that. Sometimes it’s bitter, but in my experience it is almost always involuntary…The past calls you, not the other way around.”
Within 500+ pages, Scott Carson constructs one of the most beautiful, gripping stories of friendship, growth, and the inexplicable that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. Lost Man’s Lane captures some of the same magic we’ve devoured in books such as Stephen King’s It and Richard Chizmar’s Chasing the Boogeyman while still establishing its own sense of mysterious wonder and nostalgia. The transition from adolescence to adulthood is not one filled with ease, yet under Carson’s pen, a certain enchantment persists even in the face of evil.
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