A trio of mismatched mercenaries is hired by a young woman for a deceptively simple task: check in on her nephew, who may have been taken against his will to a remote New Mexico backwoods settlement called Little Heaven. Shortly after they arrive, things begin to turn ominous. Stirrings in the woods and over the treetops—the brooding shape of a monolith known as the Black Rock casts its terrible pall. Paranoia and distrust grips the settlement. The escape routes are gradually cut off as events spiral towards madness. Hell—or the closest thing to it—invades Little Heaven. The remaining occupants are forced to take a stand and fight back, but whatever has cast its dark eye on Little Heaven is now marshaling its powers...and it wants them all.
Micah Shughrue is the first person I would choose when fighting off a team of creepy kids, evil monstrous entities that want your children, and religious fanatics.
This book is the second Nick Cutter I've read, after The Deep. I found The Deep to be scarier in a psychological sense, which plays into the abject and the fear of the unknown. This one is still psychologically scary, but it's less so than The Deep because you (kind of) know what the monster is by the end. This book read like a 1980s Steven King novel, especially in the themes and imagery it utilizes (evil children with some supernatural abilities, religious fanaticism, etc). There are many squirmy moments throughout, especially with the main villain Amos Flesher. The only thought that goes through my head when I think about him is EWWWWWW. So creepy and sick.
One of the things that this book does well is bring in connections from both reality and fairy-tales. The monster that shows up throughout the book can be seen as an inverted Pied-Piper. Flesher and the commune of Little Heaven itself are very clearly interpretations of the Jonestown massacre, right down to the drinking of the Kool-Aid. I haven't had Kool-Aid since I was 9, but I don't think I'll ever have Kool-Aid again in my life after reading both this book and the description of the Jonestown Massacre. Nick Cutter really did his research with this.
I loved the main quartet of characters. They were so flawed and very well-written. It wasn't your typical good-vs.-evil fight. They had great chemistry and it was great that they didn't all get along. Each of the main three were flawed yet sympathetic in one form or another. We see these characters over a span of many years, and they always bring something to the table. As I said, they're not considered to be "good" but they're not "bad" either. They're flawed and they have demons and they're just doing everything they can to survive a scary cult.
Cults frighten me. Period, end of story. Nick Cutter took the frightening elements of cults and turns it up to thirteen. There were still very many squicky moments in here, make no mistake. This is a Nick Cutter novel after all! But what Nick Cutter did here was so imaginitive, very realistic and on hyper-drive to play into the frightening parts of cults. (which parts aren't frightening though?) His writing here is a lot like a Stephen King novel, not ripping off, but paying homage to him and other great horror novelists.
I liked Little Heaven, not in the same way that I liked The Deep. This book is psychologically scary, but not scary in the way that his other books are. This book plays into the grotesque a lot with the evils that are at play, which I always enjoy in a horror novel. His portrayal of a religious cult with fanaticism to the Nth degree added a lot to the horror. Paying homage to the horror novels of the 1980s, this book had great characters, a clear presentation of what was at stake, and creepy villains. While it didn't scare me in the same way that The Deep scared me, I still had a good time with Little Heaven, and I'm going to give it a 4/5.
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