Recently released from a secure mental health facility and reeling from the dissolution of her marriage, Hazel returns to her small Cornish hometown to house sit for her parents and their prize show cats. She has a strong interest in mushrooms and other fungi, and when a man at the bus stop tells her he knows where to find a growth of the elusive Devil’s Fingers, Hazel agrees to go with him into the woods despite her initial misgivings.
The man, of course, means no good, and she is soon trapped in the cellar of an isolated house, where her captor promises to rid her of the demons in her head. Little does he know, she has indeed brought a demon along for the ride, and it has no desire to be exorcised …
“Dark is When the Devil Comes” is tight and tense, shifting between Hazel’s first person account of her captivity and the efforts of her estranged sister and school friend to solve the mystery of her disappearance (with the pointed disregard of her friend’s husband and the local police). The pacing is superb, and the revelation of the horrors that have brought Hazel to this point is a master work of dread. Solidly the best horror novel I’ve read this year, and certainly one of the top three overall.
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