The Falls

Maddie Decker hasn’t been back to The Falls in twelve years. Only the news that her best friend, Billy, is dying slowly from some disease could get her to return to her hometown. Just as she drives into town, she stumbles on her other childhood friend, Fletcher Avery, at the scene of a crime. An entire herd of alpacas has been decimated and no one can figure out how. Maddie, being a zoologist, offers to help Avery, who is acting as a consultant for the sheriff’s department while he’s home visiting his parents.

Avery is still recovering from last summer, when he helped catch a serial killer in their town. As young girls are being found mauled by something, Avery is worried that another serial killer might be at work. This town has some dark and dirty secrets. Avery and Maddie will soon find out that growing up in a small town doesn’t mean you know everything about everyone, while even those you least expect can be capable of terrible things.

I don’t know that I was the biggest fan of the writing style at the beginning, but it picked up for me after a while. I really don’t want to give anything away, but this is one of my absolute favorite genres of horror, other than ghost stories. I was able to figure out pretty early on that something was going on with Billy, but wasn’t sure what form it would take. The author did a great job of building the suspense throughout the story without making it blatantly obvious what the answer would be. I enjoyed getting to know Maddie, Billy, and Fletcher as well as how they related to each other.

My main warnings about this book are that it is very long and very graphic, featuring violence, adult language, and sexual descriptions. The long part isn’t a bad thing as it allows you to get into the story more and to have more time to connect with the characters; it’s only a negative when it’s an eBook, making it hard to stare at the screen for so long when you can’t put it down. The book does leave you with lots of questions. I didn’t love that the Gardner case was hinted at so strongly but never really talked about. It felt like I was coming into a sequel without realizing a first book had been written. I would have really liked to hear more about that.

Otherwise, the author did a great job leaving you with questions about what’s next for Maddie and Fletcher as well as the town. I recommend this book to horror fans and look forward to more of McMillan’s writing.