Bone White

No spoilers: 3 stars. In 1912 the little mining town of Dread\’s Hand in Alaska vanished from the face of the Earth. There one day, gone the next… In 1916 the mine collapsed killing 26 people… In 1946 US soldiers camping in the woods of the Hand saw strange lights in the sky… … they were snowed in that winter and saw something watching them from the woods… like the legend of the Wendigo… In the 1960s many people living in or near Dread\’s Hand went missing… In the 1980s a man named Silka wandered the highway near Manley Hot Springs and Dread\’s Hand looking for odd jobs… … Silka killed 9 people and the guy had gone bone white and had the devil in him… There are huge crosses lining the road just before you get into Dread\’s Hand… some look very old and appear to be arranged to be seen and understood from the sky… Up is down and down is up and bigfoot is searching for me now… what does all this mean?… I still couldn\’t tell you! My headline and the synopsis following… none of it was ever addressed or explained… My review explains my 3 star rating. I removed one star for annoying overuse of the word \”campaign\” which was used to describe someone trudging or trooping through the woods and snow. Another star removed for many, many unexplained or loose ends. After reading 400+ pages of repetition you would think the author might reserve some of those pages to explain a few things. BTW, the last 20% of the story was soooooo boring that it took me two days to finish. So buyer/reader beware!

In my 40-years, I’ve read a lot of horror fiction. Over the last decade Ronald Malfi has outpaced and outwritten the competition. With prior novels like “Floating Staircase”, “The Narrows” and “Snow”, the Brooklyn native has excelled with his vivid sense of atmosphere and the obligatory “coming dread”. Like our nostalgic masters – King, Koontz, Saul – Malfi has garnished praise and awards due to his rich, compelling writing style. In his newest novel, “Bone White”, the author builds to a harrowing crescendo through atmospheric storytelling. It isn’t about the destination…but the journey. As the reader follows the protagonist through barren Alaskan timber, they know it’s the trek into the fog that makes the book so irresistible. “Bone White” is a slower, psychological descent but one that compels the reader to turn the collar up and keep walking, exploring and dreading the inevitable darkness ahead. We know it’s there…but “Bone White” asks if we are too afraid to look.

This book starts off with a bang and then slowly creeps to its climax. I like these books which give a sense of a slow burn because it builds up apprehension which is a great payoff once you reach the end. This book I think has two very good strengths. First, the setting and environment is captivating. The author is masterful in using the landscape to help tell the story. I truly feel I am walking around Alaska as I read this book. The other thing that I like that the author does is that he doesn’t waste hundreds of pages in backstory and instead develops characters as the story progresses. There aren’t random side subplot backstories that significantly detract from the main plot. I hate when I’m reading a book and then get stuck in 20 pages of fluff that hide the action and prevent me from moving the book along. This book doesn’t have that. I only have two relatively small negatives. First, I wish the ending was about 20 more pages. I felt the book was building to a great crescendo that didn’t quite get a full play in the orchestra if you know what I mean. Certainly the author landed the plane, but I wish there was a little bit more runway (to completely mixed my metaphors). Second, without going into significant details that would spoil the book, I wish the ending had more clarifications and more full explanations. In my view there were two or three small little loose ends which I didn’t think were tied together as well as they could have been. Certainly though these do not significantly detract from an otherwise very good book. I strongly recommend if you like those types of slow burn books with a rich atmospheric setting that kind of acts as its own character.

Immediately after I finished this book I went online and looked up another title by Ronald Malfi. I was intrigued at what exactly was it that made me like the book -and Malfi\’s style- so much, because it certainly wasn\’t the plot. I think it was the atmosphere. Dread\’s Hand and the woods around it are masterfully done, and all the little details fall into place just right to create a dark and mysterious setting that\’s easy to get lost in. Malfi made sure that whatever dark entities inhabit that cold space are just spooky enough to send chills down the reader\’s spine without actually having to get them involved into the action too much. The ending doesn\’t really bring too much clarification as to the nature of the evil around Dread\’s Hand, but you don\’t feel left hanging either. It might just be the right type of ending for this kind of horror book, which, again, reads more like a study into atmosphere and character than an attempt at a masterful plot. That\’s not to say that the plot isn\’t good, but the strong points of the book are to be found elsewhere. It might not be a book for the fans of gore-type horror, but it\’s definitely worth a read if you\’re looking for a great atmospheric horror story.

Far too slow for me, the world was painted immaculately but it didnt have the speed or ferocity I had hoped for

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