ONE HOUSE LEFT

Carnage follows 16-year-old Nate, even as his family settles in a new town and he begrudgingly makes new friends.

The first deaths on Cherry Tree Lane, later dubbed “Murder Road” by the locals in the town of Belleview, happened in 1963. Over the years, through the murders that followed, legend told of the Hiding Boy, who partnered with evil to curse the street and its inhabitants. After Nate and his family move away from Belleview, he lands at Montgomery-Oakes High, where he meets the self-proclaimed Hell Chasers: Max, Tyler, and Seb. This group of friends is obsessed with investigating urban legends, and they invite Nate to join them. Even when these legends seem to come to life, the teens boldly go after the most gruesome of them all: the Hiding Boy. It’s back on Cherry Tree Lane that these tales go from spine-tingling to shocking and bloody. Ralph keeps readers on tenterhooks, and they’ll wonder why Nate’s family moved away, if what the Hell Chasers experience is actually real, and what truths lie behind the characters’ relationships. Seb and Nate are white; Max has brown skin and straight black hair, and Tyler is Black. The climactic scene is fittingly chaotic and blurry, creating a contrast with the tightness of the rest of the writing in this well-drawn story.

A suspenseful, grisly tale that’s sure to appeal to genre fans.