Dark Waters
The Small Spaces quartet, Book 3
Katherine Arden
G. P. Putnam's Sons
Fiction, MG Horror
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: It's springtime in Vermont, but the chill still hasn't left Ollie, Brian, and Coco. Ever since last fall's field trip to a local farm went terribly wrong, the three kids have been haunted, quite literally,
by the "smiling man" and his ghostly minions. Though they've plunged themselves into research on the supernatural - to the point their grades are slipping, and Brian's parents even threaten to keep him from seeing Ollie and Coco as possibly "bad influences" on their son - they have yet to find a way to break the monster's power... but, surely, there must be places even his hand can't reach, like the waters of Lake Champlain.
Coco's mother, an investigative reporter, gets them all tickets on a local sightseeing tour whose theme is "Champ", the legendary lake monster. The captain even claims to have seen it three times... not up close, but certainly there was something far too big to be a fish in the water. Still, it's a nice day to be on the lake... or it was a nice day, until Phil, the captain's nephew and one-time best friend of Brian, reels in a strange silvery sea "snake", and something massive attacks the boat, tearing out the engine and leaving them stranded by an island that isn't on any charts... an island that may not even exist in the ordinary world, but beyond the mists in the domain of the smiling man. Monsters, ghosts, and a local legend collide as the three kids, Phil, and Ollie's Dad and Coco's mother fight for survival - and this time, not everyone will make it out alive.
REVIEW: The third installment of the Small Spaces horror quartet steps up the threat and tension of the "smiling man" and the hauntings that have plagued the core trio for half a year now. This time, Brian steps to the forefront; his parents have noticed that he's not the same as he was before the strange disappearance at the farm, and are wondering whether his new friends are to blame. He himself starts to realize that he's been pushing people away, out of fear that any friends he makes or confides in might become targets of the supernatural forces that have taken a personal interest in himself, Ollie, and Coco. (This is also why they haven't told their parents what's going on; even given the high likelihood that the adults wouldn't believe them, they're all terrified of endangering their families.) When Brian has a run-in with Phil, who was his best friend before the fateful field trip, he realizes that the three of them may not actually be the only kids who remember what happened in the corn fields like they thought... and how much worse must it have been for Phil to not only remember having been turned into a living scarecrow, but not be believed and lose his one-time best friend Brian at the same time? Even as the group considers whether to draw Phil into their confidence, it seems the smiling man is reaching out once again, first with a cryptic warning and then with the sea serpent attack that strands everyone on the impossible island. This time, two adults are endangered as well, in a way that makes it impossible to ignore that what's going on is outside the bounds of normal reality, but it's still the kids who have to figure out how to escape this latest trap - a trap with ties to Lake Champlain's history and a mysterious shipwreck that eerily mirrors their own circumstances.
As before, Arden delivers some deep chills and thrills and tangible threat. The kids sometimes stumble and make mistakes, but do the best they can given the circumstances and the information they have. It builds to a very tense climax that changes the stakes dramatically, setting up the fourth and final installment. I will definitely be looking for the last book soon.
You Might Also Enjoy:
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) - My Review
The Ghost in the Third Row (Bruce Coville) - My Review
The Screaming Staircase (Jonathan Stroud) - My Review
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