Pay the piper

Best-selling author Kraus' work with the Romero archive (The Living Dead, 2020) has unearthed another partially finished novel. In 1998 in the Louisiana swamp, Alligator Point is a dying community where pirates once ruled the waterways, octopus carvings are everywhere, and "the Piper" has stalked the town for generations. Opening with a tandem of unsettling scenes, Kraus and Romero build an unforgettable cast of characters whose alternating perspectives bring the Point to life, including Pete, the John Wayne--obsessed sheriff, and nine-year-old Ponitac. The pervasive unease and steady pacing will lead readers eagerly to the book's final third, where it all breaks wide open, violently revealing the epic root of the terror. A great action-packed horror novel, Pay the Piper also dives deeper, telling a story about revenge and regret that offers real hope. For fans of waterlogged southern gothic with monsters that prey off the complicated history of a land and its people, such as The Toll (2019), by Cherie Priest; The Boatmans' Daughter (2020), by Andy Davidson; and Evil Whispers (2023), by Owl Goingback.

Kraus's second attempt at completing an unfinished novel from horror master Romero (1940--2017), after The Living Dead, is a dud; the plot, about a boogeyman targeting children in the Louisiana bayou, is familiar, and lackluster prose and thin characterizations do little to elevate it. The backwoods town of Alligator Point is home to the legend of the Piper, "the thing kids whispered about, the thing that drank laughter like Kool-Aid, that chewed good feelings like bubblegum." The Piper strikes early in the narrative, abducting nine-year-old Billy May as punishment for the sins of his ancestors, then removing his heart and devouring it. Billy's fate remains unknown for months, but after more kids disappear, panic sets in, and his best friend endeavors to learn the truth. Kraus's rendering of the Cajun dialect often sounds like a parody ("Dat somet'ing out t'ere, it de root of all de awful on de Point"), and the plot's late-breaking Lovecraftian elements feel tacked on and can't save the cookie-cutter story line. Even diehard Romero fans will be disappointed. (Aug.)