What happens when evil, in the form of William Pitch, returns to the same mountain town every thirteen years to fulfill his bargain agreement with the devil to collect his bounty of young boys to be sacrificed? Pitch happens.
Author William Ollie is no stranger to the horror genre, and here he shows why his name is synonymous with good horror fiction. This novel does a good job building up characters, infusing evil, and keeping the reader on edge.
In the mountains of West Virginia, a group of young boys face many of the same trials and expectations of teenage boys everywhere… hated teachers, forbidding parents, and eager anticipation for a new horror movie coming to town. These boys, however, will soon be living their own horror story as William Pitch, a demon-man who bargained with the devil, returns after thirteen years away, to wreak havoc and prey on the town that seems to mostly have forgotten the horrors it faced slightly more than a decade before.
Pitch easily takes over the town as a infiltrates the small town police and recruits members of the community. If the boys are to survive, it will have to be on their own wits and guile.
Ollie’s characters are strong, though the boys are almost interchangeable, with few significant unique traits. The set-up was occasionally long and tedious, but when the story revolved around the horror of Pitch’s work, the book was engrossing. Books don’t need a lot of blood and gore to be horror (just look at Shirley Jackson’s work), but William Ollie adds just enough to make the reader feel delightful uncomfortable.
This is a good work, and I look forward to reading more William Ollie.
Looking for a good book? If horror is your genre…this should give you the shivvers!
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Pitch
author: William Ollie
publisher: Dark Regions Press
hardcover, 252 pages
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