Kenyon's third outing is intelligent horror that under no circumstances should be passed up. Set against Canada's wintry backdrop, “The Bone Factory” vibrates with atmospheric chills. With each page the horror builds, cresting into a frantic dash to the end. Kenyon excels not only at building tension, but creating characters that readers truly care about. Fostering that type of empathy in his audience can only make his stock rise as a writer.
David Pierce and his family are living a very real horror: unemployment in a sagging job market. After losing his job over a matter of integrity, David has searched everywhere for work. Things are tense between he and his wife Helen. Worse, they're worried about their daughter, Jessie. A bright, precocious child, she suffers chronic nightmares and struggles with an obsessive compulsive disorder. They're at their wits end, and David fears his family will suffer irreparable damage if he doesn't find work soon.
It seems to good to be true: a job offer at their most desperate moment, at a hydro-power plant in a small Canadian town. The Pierces move North, excited and relieved. It's not long, however, before David senses something amiss. A strange aura lingers in the frigid air, and unexpected accusations of environmental negligence puts him in the middle of an investigation he didn't expect. Has he been hired as a fall guy? What is his employer hiding? What invisible menace lurks in the snow-covered forest around his home...and how is it intruding into his daughter's dreams?
Much like Mary SanGiovanni in her “Hollower” novels, Kenyon masterfully instills a mood of creeping, foreboding chills. This is a story that takes it time and builds, however, so it's best read and enjoyed leisurely, over a period of time. Also, Kenyon illuminates horrific elements that find their roots in the everyday: a crumbling family, spouses worried about their marriage, a war veteran scarred by more than just battle trauma. This type of substance will always have a greater impact than gore-filled bloodbaths, because it strikes at the very heart of being human and afraid.
Visit www.natekenyon.com and www.myspace.com/natekenyon. Buy it today.
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