The Summer Fun Massacre

DiLouie (My Ex, the Antichrist) lends substance and style to a familiar slasher plot in this duology-launching horror novel. In 1992 Ledger, Tex., Deputy Sheriff Tom Bailey performs a nighttime safety check at the local Summer Fun camp and finds the counselors slaughtered, with only one traumatized survivor. The massacre replicates a grisly rampage at the camp that took place just nine years earlier, and that only Tom’s then-girlfriend, Marigold, survived. It also resurrects the century-old legend of the “Hungry Hare,” a supernatural serial killer who prowls the prairie in a hare mask, dismembering and eating his victims. When Tom’s investigation into connections between the two massacres turn up other forgotten incidents of mass murder and suspicious deaths that have plagued Ledger for decades, the tale’s trajectory shifts from the hunt for a psycho killer to a well-wrought small-town noir built on dark family secrets, buried local history, and a sense of communal spiritual stagnation whose taint Tom has experienced himself. Through confident, atmospheric prose, DiLouie adds tone and texture to a story that might otherwise have wallowed in splatter and gore. The arresting result raises high expectations for the sequel. Agent: David Fugate, LaunchBooks Literary. (June)