I’ve been looking forward to reading Jay Bower’s “The Terror of Willow Falls“ and finished it last night.

The set up is as follows: Young Joey and his family move from Chicago to a small town. Joey soon discovers that the town has secrets, and a hideous monster may lurk in its surroundings.

The “kids versus monsters“ theme is a classic motif, and Bower pulls it off here. I should note that even though our hero is young, there are plenty of truly horrifying acts described in the pages.

The book is set in the 80s, which gave it a certain nostalgic quality for me since I would’ve been almost exactly the protagonist’s age at that point. In particular, I loved the reference to heavy metal band Anthrax’s single “I am the Law,“ about the comic book character Judge Dredd. I can still recall seeing that in the record store.

The prose is very solid, very readable.

Some characters’ behavior in certain situations didn’t feel quite “real” to me, but that’s horror. (I’m guilty of the same in my novels.)

Best line: “This thing is called Eyebiter. That doesn’t sound like something we’d wanna hang out with.”

Five stars.