In 2019, while sifting through University of Pittsburgh Library's System's George A. Romero Archival Collection, novelist Daniel Kraus turned up a surprise: a half-finished novel called Pay the Piper, a project few had ever heard of. In the years since, Kraus has worked with Romero's estate to bring this unfinished masterwork to light.
Alligator Point, Louisiana, population 141: Young Renée Pontiac has heard stories of "the Piper"-a murderous swamp entity haunting the bayou-her entire life. But now the legend feels horrifically real: children are being taken and gruesomely slain. To resist, Pontiac and the town's desperate denizens will need to acknowledge the sins of their ancestors-the infamous slave traders, the Pirates Lafitte. If they don't . . . it's time to pay the piper.
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Bob Fireman's Wagon Wheel Carnival had rolled its calliope pennants to the outskirts of Alligator Point's green inferno every January 8 since - well, no still living Pointer could recall it not coming. (1)
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(@TitanBooks, 3 September 2024, e-galley, 384 pages, ARC from the publisher via @NetGalley)
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I really enjoyed Pay the Piper. I enjoyed the book's setting in the Louisiana Bayou, somewhere unfamiliar to me. The world building is well developed and the descriptive passages really immersed me in the world. The book could not take place anywhere else and the setting is integral to everything that happens. This is a proper horror novel featuring supernatural threats. So many modern horror novels are about human horrors so it was a nice change to read a book involving supernatural, eerie horror. This is well written, intense and entertaining. I'd recommend it.
