THE LEFTOVERS CLUB

A group of adults who survived a murder spree decades ago confronts the possible reemergence of the killer in this horror novel.

In 1986, the small town of Deighton, Pennsylvania, was terrorized by a serial killer named Tom Wickerman, who murdered at least six children before crashing his car into a frozen lake during a winter storm. The survivors—the kids the Deighton Demon did not slay—formed the Leftovers Club as a means to work through their collective trauma. The club still meets 35 years later, and most of the members have long since built stable lives for themselves. Joe White grew up to be a successful novelist and has two kids with fellow Leftover Judy. But things are about to change. It begins when Joe notices an older man hanging around outside his house. When the man makes vague threats regarding the writer’s young son, Simon, Joe can’t help but wonder if it’s Wickerman. It’s impossible, of course—Wickerman would be over 100 years old even if he hadn’t died in the lake—but maybe he had a brother or some other relative? At the next Leftovers meeting, Joe learns that he isn’t the only one who thinks he’s seen the killer around town. Oddities continue to pile up, but when one of their own turns up murdered in her house, the Leftovers know that the Deighton Demon isn’t done with them. From the very beginning, Wennerstroem’s prose clicks like an ascending roller coaster, building tension with every scene: “Judy shook her head; she hadn’t seen her, nor did she want to, at least not yet. The room down the hall overflowed with feverish commotion, voices distorted by fear and horror, then the house fell quiet, dead quiet.” The book has strong notes of Stephen King—the premise is more than a bit reminiscent of It—but as the tale unfolds, Wennerstroem’s sensibility comes into its own. The characters mostly hew to established types—including the cops working on the investigation, a street-wise Baltimore transfer and a veteran of the 1986 case—but the author draws them well. For fans of terror and suspense, Wennerstroem’s unnerving story does the trick.

A gripping horror tale in the pulpy paperback tradition.