Bark at the Ghouls

Stalking You Now is a novella and will be easy to spoil if I get all long-windy so I’ll be keeping it short. When it begins a stalker is doing what stalkers do best. He is following around a loud mouthed man who deserves a beating just because he’s so obnoxious. Whoops, did I say that out loud? Anyway, the stalker (whose real name is never revealed) has a history with this lout and plans to mete out his revenge tonight.

But things go . . . awry.

Turns out Stalker Man is quite possibly the most inept killer on the planet. Instead of playing out his lovely little revenge scenario on the man he believes ruined his life, his night takes a turn into Cuckoo-Land. Nothing goes as planned and humor and pain ensue.

“We struggle. She has the advantage of my pain and disorientation, and also her vicious fingernails. But I’m stronger and have murdered people. She’s winning. I’m no sexist, but how the hell is she winning?”

There is a very small cast of characters here, none you’ll fall in love with but that’s not the point. Read it for the humor, the tension, the small moments of gore and the twisty turns. As with most novels by Jeff Strand you never know where he’s going until he gets there and it’s never where you expected him to go. There are some eye squinting scenes and plenty of morbid humor and the dialogue is mostly good and snarky. And the ending? Well, I thought it was pretty great. Check it out if you need a little humor in your day.