Behind

By Bentley Little

Cemetery Dance Publications (July 19, 2024)

Review by The Horror Zine Editor Jeani Rector

Buy the book HERE

I have read many books written by Bentley Little, and I have to say that his new novel BEHIND is now one of my favorites. This story captured my attention from the very first two sentences: “When he was a little boy, there was a house behind his house. Except he was the only one who could see it.”

The story features a now grown-up Alex Lowry, who is on a fast track for promotion at his corporate job. He creates a great opportunity for his company to sell sneakers at Target, only to find out afterwards that no one told him that the company changed its model to high-end shoes that would never see the light of day at a discount store like Target. It is only when the company lets him go that he realizes he was set-up by a jealous co-worker.

Shell-shocked, Alex decides to go into a new courier business with a close friend. This unusual business only caters to high-end clients who want specialized and hard-to-find items. Except these clients tend to be strange, and their requests for items to be delivered are even stranger.

Meanwhile, like many married couples, Alex finds his father-in-law to be difficult to get along with. Until the day when invited to dinner, Alex realizes that suddenly he sees the same phantom house in his in-laws’ back yard as he saw in his own as a child. At first, just like when he was a child, only Alex could see the house, but eventually his father-in-law is also able to see it.

Even more strange, someone inside that house is singing.

Bentley Little is the master of taking normal people and thrusting them into abnormal situations, usually with a supernatural bent. There is a continuing sense of dread that only increases as you read this book. Something that is supposed to be a place of safety and comfort is a home, and to have that home be a thing of translucence and apprehension only ups the creep factor. It gives the reader a sense of “wrongness.”

The book takes place during the COVID pandemic, although the illness is in the background. I personally would like to have seen the disease more front-and-center, but then you would have had a completely different story. There are, and will be, many books written about the pandemic. So perhaps the idea that the disease is not the main villain in this novel makes it more unique.

What this book does describe is a metaphysical reality that co-exists with our perceived reality. What starts as paranoia from Alex turns into a mystery that the author wants the reader to solve.

I was drawn into the story from the first two sentences and I never put the book down until the twist at the end. I highly recommend Bentley Little’s book BEHIND.