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“Sometimes the worst things that happen to you come from the smallest decisions.”

Author: Darcy Coates

Think your hometown is going nowhere real fast? Well . . . you’re still probably better off than Doubtful, which has a bit more of a problem than just being backwaters and old-fashioned. You see, Doubtful has a generational serial killer. A man (or is it?) who kidnaps the unwary and returns them in pieces, reimagined as it were, sewn together with other victims, bisected by bright red threads, organic monstrosities that no longer resemble the humans from whom they were crafted. This then is the town’s legacy: The Sticher. And no one can escape. When he is hunting, you just better hope that you’re not next.

Some (many) think it’s a man – the local Charles Vickers. Some think that it’s something far older, far more inhuman. Either way, the police cannot solve the crime. The town has developed unspoken rules. Don’t go out alone. Don’t go out at night. When the technology stops working, The Sticher is around. Abby Ward and her teenage friends are no exceptions. However, their youth gives them a new perspective and a desire to finally break free of this town and unravel its curse.

Darcy Coates is the queen of atmosphere. She can make you believe, make your spine tingle with thrilling fear, make you picture a time and a place, make you fear the thing under the bed all over again. She can also craft characters with whom you connect and lead you to willingly suspend your belief to enter the world of story crafting. There is something less gruesome – more PG13 about her as well – making her horror a little more palatable in the hard places and a little more hopeful in the outcomes.

I’m well into my Coates journey/fandom now. Where He Can’t Find You is a solid offering, although not a personal favorite. The key elements of atmosphere and characterization are as strong as ever, but the logic is deeply flawed in places, the character decisions woefully horror-movie stereotypical, and the answers too ephemeral. You won’t leave satisfied with the explanation, but you will leave having enjoyed the somewhat bumpy ride.

Image by Jud from Pixabay

We spend a lot of time in this book setting the scene, and that creates pacing issues that the ramped-up ending doesn’t entirely salvage. This one is slow, and honestly, it could have moved a bit faster. We could have gotten the character and town story much faster without losing the appeal of Abby’s interactions with her friends and family. Still, if given the choice, I’d rather spend more time on worldcraft and characters than fantastical plots and thrills that fade quickly. This is why, again, Coates horror books stand out from the rest. Her books, her stories, her characters remain with you, even the imperfect ones.

Where the book truly disappointed me was in the explanation of The Stitcher. It just doesn’t quite make sense. It’s told through a third person – a story of someone’s that was then told to someone else, that was further passed along. This game of telephone doesn’t stand the test after all this time, after all our questions and wondering. Yet it is accepted as gospel, despite the numerous issues with the Stitcher’s origination and his sudden, shall we say, turn.

In the end, the characters make every dumb mistake teenagers in horror movies usually make. It’s the usual “I panicked and ran away and threw the gun aside, and yet somehow defeated the monster that has been clever enough to survive smarter, better armed people for hundreds of years.” Yeah . . . .it doesn’t work. We need more. The story itself deserved more and better.

For any other author, this would be the death knell. For Coates, it’s just a less satisfying book than some of her others. Her stories still just have that Goldilocks feeling. They’re just right, even when they aren’t perfect. Worth reading, but don’t start your Coates journey here.

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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