The #Bookvent Calendar 2020 – Day 24 – Part 1

#Bookvent – Celebrating my top reads of 2020

And here we have it, the first of my top three reads of 2020. What do all three books have in common? Well aside from being most excellent, obviously, whilst each may have a central character we follow through the story, they really are an examination of the life of not just those individuals but of the communities they live in. They are about the ensemble as much as the individual and that makes their impact so much more vivid.

My first day twenty-four #bookvent pick is perhaps one of the most original, and memorable books I have read in a very long time. I am not quite sure if the author is a genius or perhaps just slightly nuts. The third book in a series, each one has take a long, hard, and often damning, look at society and our lack of empathy for other, our obsession with social media, and the ease with which we can be manipulated to do the unthinkable, and this book was no exception. So hard to say any more without giving the game away so I will just say that my first #bookvent pick of the day is …

Hinton Hollow Death Trip by Will Carver

Five days in the history of a small rural town, visited and infected by darkness, are recounted by Evil itself. A stunning high-concept thriller from the bestselling author of Good Samaritans and Nothing Important Happened Today.

It’s a small story. A small town with small lives that you would never have heard about if none of this had happened.

Hinton Hollow. Population 5,120.

Little Henry Wallace was eight years old and one hundred miles from home before anyone talked to him. His mother placed him on a train with a label around his neck, asking for him to be kept safe for a week, kept away from Hinton Hollow.

Because something was coming.

Narrated by Evil itself, Hinton Hollow Death Trip recounts five days in the history of this small rural town, when darkness paid a visit and infected its residents. A visit that made them act in unnatural ways. Prodding at their insecurities. Nudging at their secrets and desires. Coaxing out the malevolence suppressed within them. Showing their true selves.

Making them cheat.
Making them steal.
Making them kill.

Detective Sergeant Pace had returned to his childhood home. To escape the things he had done in the city. To go back to something simple. But he was not alone.

Evil had a plan.

This book …. It may. be a self professed ‘small story’ but it packs one hell of a walloping punch. Narrated by no less than Evil themself, this is the story of the sleepy town of Hinton Hollow. Although it’s not so sleepy once Evil comes a calling. Murder, missing people, and a slaughterhouse, there really is a little bit of everything in this typically twisted tale by the master of perception manipulation. Although perhaps not quite as angry in tone as its predecessor, Nothing Important Happens Today, there is definitely an undertone of judgment and it is no less dark and no less challenging to us as readers. But then Evil isn’t angry, Evil just …. is. And challenge is something that Mr Carver excels at and if you can read this book without taking a long hard look at yourself and wondering just what it is you, as a reader will tolerate and then not wonder why …. Well, I think you’ve. been reading a different book. Murder? No problem. Missing person? Inconvenient for some but, okay. Hurt a defenceless animal …. What the hell was the author thinking? How can he let that happen? I know, right? But we all think it and it is no more apparent than when we follow Evil as they trail the citizens of Hinton Hollow. Evil doesn’t make things happen, but Evil also doesn’t intervene, once again leaving us to wonder if people are really born ‘evil’ or are considered ‘evil’ but virtue of their actions alone. With truly memorable scenes, one of the most original narrators to ever grace literature, and an inimitable style that is part indictment of modern society but all entertaining, this is a book that I absolutely galloped through. I couldn’t believe it, I couldn’t always face it but, in the. style of all of the morbidly fascinated, I couldn’t turn away for long. Split into five days of increasingly dark narrative, Evil warns us many times to turn away if easily offended, but I didn’t heed those warning and I am so glad. I think … Full of dark, often witty narrative and a story that will haunt you for a long time after, if you cannot identify with a least part of the world that Will Carver creates, I’m not entirely sure you are human. Either that or you didn’t read the book properly. Crazy, creative genius or not, this is a book I loved, for all the right, and possibly wrong, reasons.

To read my full review, head back to the original post right here.

Happy #bookvent reading all

Jen