DEVIL’S CREEK BY TODD KEISLING: BOOK REVIEW

The shadow of a death cult hangs over a small Kentucky
town in one of the standout horror novels of 2020
 

When 2020 ends and the horror community has its annual shakeup of lists highlighting the best the year has had to offer Todd Keisling’s superb Devil’s Creek is a certainly to be mixing in the cauldron. This novel truly got under my skin and in the background I’m certain I can still hear the hum vibrating from Jacob Master’s remote Kentucky church, preaching “that old time religion” which is guaranteed to scare the absolute crap out of you. I do not know where the author lives, but I can guarantee few bookshops in the southern ‘Bible Belt’ states of America are going to be stocking Devil’s Creek. And Todd, if you do live in that neck of the woods, I recommend you change your name before the book is published! Especially if you live in a little town anything like Stauford…
 
Although first and foremost Devil’s Creek is an outstanding horror novel, it also has much to say about small town America, closed minds, hypocrisy, and the church itself. However, just to be clear, “that old time religion” which is referred to on numerous occasions is not Christianity and this much older belief throbs at the core of this multi-layered story. I do enjoy novels about religious cults and this tale sits at the top table alongside Adam Nevill’s Last Days and The Reddening. Later in the year James Brodgen’s outstanding Bone Harvest is also released, so messed-up cult lovers are spoilt for choice with this pair of sprawling novels.
 
Do not go thinking Devil’s Creek is ‘just another’ story of a dodgy religious cult, it brings significantly more to the table than that, with a fiendishly clever and multi-character plot which silkily moves from 1983 to the modern day with the memories of the earlier period casting a pitch black shadow over the present day storyline. Early in proceedings Jack Tremly returns to the small town of Stauford which he left many years earlier to pursue a successful career as an artist, it is also a journey he has been dreading. The stuff he paints is so dark it makes  Hieronymus Bosch look like a Disney cartoon and his recurring nightmares form a big part of his inspiration, which is rooted in horrible childhood events from the Lord’s Church of Holy Voices which was situated in the remote forests fifteen miles from Stauford.
 
Jack has returned to the town to settle the estate of his late grandmother Imogene Tremly who raised him after the notorious incident at the church led by Jacob Masters. Some of the strongest sequences in the book concern Jack’s discovery of what exactly his grandmother’s role was in the original death cult as he uncovers her research, all of which bring back old ghosts he has tried to keep buried over the subsequent thirty years. All roads lead back to Jacob Masters and what a superb character he was. Even though he was only in the book sporadically, his essence and vibe dominated proceedings and he was a truly monstrous boogieman who throbbed with malicious glee; “Suffering is the way to salvation, my child. You are not quite there yet.” Although Devil’s Creek was not a particularly explicit book, the reader was never in any doubt the level of pain this guy was able to inflict and the enjoyment he takes from the suffering of others which was part of this much older religion.
 
The location of the church positively vibrated with menace and dread in both time periods and Todd Keisling does an outstanding job of revealing the true events of 1983 at the Lord’s Church of Holy Voices through the fractured memories of Jack Tremly who has dealt with a proportion of the trauma through his art. But soon the horrors all come flooding back, and the descriptions from within the underground cavern discovered within the church were hair-raising, as were the atmospheric local forests and the community built around the church which had no electricity or running water. Equally impressive were the descriptions of the dilapidation felt by the church complex over the next thirty years and the feeling of unease which never truly went away. Something about this horrible location reminded me of Jim Jones and ‘Jonestown’ and the mass suicide connected to the remote Guyana location. Every small town has its own haunted houses or forests and although teenagers have used the abandoned site for hangouts nobody is ever truly comfortable there. Keisling is an absolute master at creating both atmosphere and menace and a writer as skilful as this does not tell have to tell us it is ‘creepy’ as it radiates from the page with the voices of dead children singing in the background. I can still hear them. It was that effective.  
 
The complex relationship between Jack and his five half-siblings (they share the same father) is another major highpoint of the book. Jack might be the main character, but Devil’s Creek is also seen from their point of view and they all have a slightly different role in the events which follow. Because of their connection to the destroyed church the siblings became known as the ‘Stauford Six’ and all had a tough time at school with their lives heading in very different directions. My favourite was Stephanie who rails against the conservative Christian right by running a successful heavy metal radio station. Another of the siblings was Bobby who is a preacher at one of the many Baptist churches in Stauford; his teenage son, Riley, was also an excellent character, who rebels against his dad and edges towards his aunt Stephanie. All five, the other three being Chuck, Zeke and Zeke, deal with the darkness of their childhood in different ways and the full range of support characters involved in the plot kept the story fresh and entertaining.   
 

​Devil’s Creek was simply outstanding and had an exquisitely slow pace which built towards a major apocalyptic plot shift in the final 30%. The main characters were convincing, and the recreation of small-town American life and its conflicts were first rate. Equally impressive were the support characters who helped in adding extra flavour to the book, my favourite was Skippy, a brain-damaged old man who was a school football star in his youth and can feel the approaching shift in atmosphere towards darkness, which was so effective throughout the book. I recommend this novel very highly and for fans of supernatural horror you are unlikely to read many better tales this year.
 
It was also very nice to see Devil’s Creek was dedicated to Frank Errington and Matt Molgaard who were both very well know figures in the horror reviewing community. Both sadly passed-away in the last couple years, Matt being tragically young.  
 
Finally, if you hear anybody singing “Oh, give me that old-time religion. It’s good enough for me” then turn-tail and run in the other direction! A stunner.
 
5/5
 
Tony Jones

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