Little Heaven

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The setting: an isolated backwoods compound where the work of a cult leader ends up heightening the fear factor of his flock, especially when relating to their children. The aphid left the cactus roots, through the loose packed sand where it encountered a honey ant which fed on the honeydew that aphids produce and whatever had got inside the aphid now slipped silently into the ant. Little Heaven" is the story of three mercenaries hired by a woman to go to an isolated religious community to find her nephew, who has been taken there by his father - and hopefully, get him out.

I’m not sure if reading it during the holiday season was the best decision, but if you’re looking for something that will make your skin crawl, this is the right book for you. More than that, Cutter follows his dark story to its logical conclusion, giving us darker deeds than even Pennywise managed, and making his heroes more complicit and less of a symbol of good. At the beginning of the novel, set in the 1980s, we meet each of the mercenaries and learn a little bit about their backstory.Whenever I found that happening, some piece of writing or creative incident would set me right back on the path. Something that I found really interesting about this book was that it felt almost like a Western as well as a horror novel, and not just because it took place in the New Mexican desert.

While the dark and disturbing elements worked well, it was everything in between that forced me to bring my rating down. But even if they don't, it is worth plowing on, because the good bits, which is most of this book, are so freakin' worth it. Oh, and I almost forgot, there are some truly awesome illustrations in the novel so because Goodreads won't allow 1/2 stars, and because of the Cutter's imagination, and given the great pictures, I'm giving "Little Heaven" a weak 3/5.As such, I was really not all that surprised when I came to experience the same ennui with Little Heaven. Then we meet the main characters and it's a bit of a slow burn as we get to know each of them intimately. Ebenezer Elkins, “The Englishman,” is delightfully cordial, clever as a whip, and unyieldingly deadly. Then, the book went from slow to confusing to horrifying really quickly and left me on edge until the last page.

Little Heaven is a spectacular novel, it’s insidious evil just mounts the whole way through and it’s bloody fabulous! I liked the concept of this book and the story is very interesting, but like I mentioned before there is just a disconnect somewhere. The most disgusting horror often comes from what people do to each other under its influence — here is where the Stephen King influence comes in, as we get glimpses into the broken childhoods and miserable adulthoods of people who becomes murderers and cult leaders or just hapless victims. So I have to give “Little Heaven” a lot of credit for freaking me out and making me unable to read it at night.Micah, Minerva and Ebenezer are all 'gunslingers' if you will, working as bounty hunters, hit men and such. This really is one hell of a horror story, it just creeps up on you and sinks it’s claws right into your gut and rips everything out. And you keep loving even when the world cracks open and reveals a black hole where all that love can get swallowed. Nick Cutter is the pseudonym for Craig Davidson, whose much-lauded literary fiction includes Rust and Bone, The Saturday Night Ghost Club, and, most recently, the short story collection Cascade. Whether that’s because they’re blinded by faith, or something supernatural, doesn’t matter; what matters is that it happens.