The Nightmare Man by J. H. Markert (Review)

Format Read: eBook

Source: NetGalley

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Fiction

Publication Date: 10th January 2023

Synopsis/Blurb (Taken from Goodreads):

“Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of New Haven. Ben Bookman, bestselling novelist and heir to the Blackwood estate, spent a weekend at the ancestral home to finish writing his latest horror novel, The Scarecrow. Now, on the eve of the book’s release, the terrible story within begins to unfold in real life.

Detective Mills arrives at the scene of a gruesome murder: a family butchered and bundled inside cocoons stitched from corn husks, and hung from the rafters of a barn, eerily mirroring the opening of Bookman’s latest novel. When another family is killed in a similar manner, Mills, along with his daughter, rookie detective Samantha Blue, is determined to find the link to the book—and the killer—before the story reaches its chilling climax.

As the series of “Scarecrow crimes” continues to mirror the book, Ben quickly becomes the prime suspect. He can’t remember much from the night he finished writing the novel, but he knows he wrote it in The Atrium, his grandfather’s forbidden room full of numbered books. Thousands of books. Books without words.

As Ben digs deep into Blackwood’s history he learns he may have triggered a release of something trapped long ago—and it won’t stop with the horrors buried within the pages of his book.”

My Thoughts

The Nightmare man is a well written horror mystery. It has an interesting plot that felt original and not like anything I’ve read before. I thought the storyline was good but I did feel like it was missing the truly scary stuff that I was really looking forward to. I mean there is some blood and gory details, which I enjoyed but at the same time I found it didn’t get my heart racing, like I thought it would.

Now, although I liked the main storyline, I wasn’t quite a fan of the mini storyline. They just felt like they didn’t fit. They do come together at the end, but personally, I think they would have been better as individual stories.

The characters were an interesting bunch, I didn’t find any of them particularly likeable but I did like some of the relationships between the different characters. My particular favourite was the complicated relation between rookie Detective Blue and her father Detective Mills.

This is a hard book to share thoughts on without giving away spoilers but overall a good book read that I would recommend to those who like mild horror reads but at the same time ad mystery thriller fans.

I would like to thank NetGalley and the publishers Crooked Lane Books for a copy of my eARC in exchange for my honest and unbiased thoughts.

My Rating