If you are a true crime buff then that might ring your bell, as it was the setting of the 1986 hit film, River's Edge, starring Keanu Reeves, which is based on the notorious 1981 murder of Marcy Renee Conrad, where many teens knew of her killing but failed to initially report it. I thoroughly enjoyed another curveball Darnielle throws at the reader the setting is the small Californian town of Milpitas.

This aspect the book fails to deliver, as these characters are uniformly bland and one-dimensional, but you could also argue that this is partly due to the shortcomings of his research and lack of embellishment, so perhaps it’s intentional. Much of Devil House is built around Gage Chandler’s findings of the protagonists who were around at the time and were the potential suspects, accomplices, or witnesses. The setting of the killings is a former adult book and video shop which is hugely unpopular with the local residents but a regular hangout with teens. What is fascinating about this is the murders did not make headline news the first time around, even though they took place during the 1980s Satanic Panic era and looked vaguely ritualistic in nature. Gage is seeking his next literary hit and buys the house which was the scene of an unsolved double murder fifteen years earlier. Sound familiar? If you’ve seen Sinister, you bet it does. A true-crime writer buys the house which was previously the scene of a gruesome murder and plans to research and write about it. Even though the main case is non-supernatural, it still reminded me of the hit film Sinister.

John darnielle devil house