Synopsis
The sound of the whistle that split Patricia’s life in two still haunts her two decades later, its echoes leaving their indelible stamp on everything she does. The rift caused by her father’s unsolved death haunts her, pushing her to ever more dangerous attempts to put his memory to rest. Breaking into mausoleums in the dead of night isn’t how she pictured her life, but she’ll do almost anything to know what happened.
When a group of amateur cryptid hunters shows up in her small town, Trish doesn’t hesitate to take what might be her only chance to find answers, even if they’re searching in the last place she should be. A sealed, abandoned mine; tight underground passages filled with unseen creatures, and impenetrable darkness await the crew, but it’s the only path forward, and Trish won’t leave her father’s legacy buried, delving ever deeper into danger to where that whistle still moans.
Review
As always, a huge thanks to Shortwave Media for the physical arc. I love the Killer VHS series! And believe it or not, this was a first for me with this author.
This one starts with a hell of an opening. A group of school kids waiting for the bus. What began as a normal morning. Then, the long low whistle, a sound that would reshape their mining town and their entire lives. Patricia, Trish, refused to get on the bus, something telling her her life would never be the same. I imagined that whistle like a klaxon, driving all normalcy, as well as warmth, from their bones. An accident was what it was called. Then as bodies were recovered, all except her father’s, blame started to be placed.
The jump to adulthood kind of took me by surprise, but I really enjoyed the fact that her loss was still the center of her attention. I mean, that is certainly unhealthy, but there is a strength and determination to that too. Perseverance. I just knew that readers were going to get to enter the mine shaft. I just knew it. And hated it, and read it in page-turning fervor. This felt like The Descent mixed with Anaconda and notes of The Chamber of Secrets in this claustrophobic caving story. I also enjoyed that it’s not just a creature feature, it’s urban legend and cryptid and found footage-y investigation with an emotional undertone to the story. I wanted to help Trish find answers, but I really didn’t want to go spelunking to do it. The underwater scenes reminded me a bit of The Cavern by Alister Hodge. Caves, darkness, tight spaces, and water or going beneath water are NOT for me, so this was a perfect horror to get under my skin.
There is a fair bit of brutality here. Dark, bloody, gross descriptions and intense injuries. Venomous, leaking, necrotic tissue. The author wrote some incredibly vivid things into this release. I’m here for it, but my lunch is not. Everything you’d want in a horror.
There’s some great found friendship too, even if it is through trauma bonding. But don’t misunderstand, this is certainly a novel with a body count. Hard fought answers, long kept secrets, and interesting beings too. And I really enjoyed how things tied together.
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