The Nightmare Man -- J. H. Markert, Hardcover

T. Kingfisher meets Cassandra Khaw in a chilling horror novel that illustrates the fine line between humanity and monstrosity.

Blackwood mansion looms, surrounded by nightmare pines, atop the hill over the small town of Crooked Tree. 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.

Author: J. H. Markert
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Published: 01/10/2023
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.30w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781639101702

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 09/26/2022
Booklist 11/01/2022 pg. 41
Library Journal 11/18/2022 pg. 1