Jade Daniels returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings.
Both welcome and brutal. This is a slasher novel, after all, and the characters returning from the first novel gain new depth while we hold our breath to see if they will live through the story ... Readers familiar with the slasher form will find additional connections and genre subversions due to Jones’s metatextual references, ranging from riffs on serial-killer vision to one-off references to long-forgotten slasher films. You don’t need to have read Jones’s previous works to enjoy Don’t Fear the Reaper, but it helps ... Not just a tour de force; it’s a chainsaw-mounted snowcat crashing through a suffocating blizzard, all heavy metal and diesel and blood, with the final girl Jade Daniels at the helm—older, refined, and more defiant than ever.
... both satisfyingly terrifying and deeply entrenched in the intricacies of its subgenre. It’s a book that knows the rules, from a writer who knows exactly when to bend those rules ... What makes Jones the current reigning luminary of modern horror fiction is more than expertise and a sharp eye for brutality and dread. Tucked into his warm, propulsive prose is a white hot coal of raw, emotional might and relentless honesty which heightens every horror yarn he spins ... Everything in Don’t Fear the Reaper works remarkably well, but it all ultimately comes back to Jones’ gift for the emotion that’s driving each page.
... an all-consuming dive into the aesthetics of slasher films of yore, married with prose that takes itself seriously enough to be captivating but not so seriously that it feels needlessly glum. Don’t Fear the Reaper is a love letter to horror classics ... Jones doesn’t just deftly employ the tropes of slasher films; he expands them, giving his cast of teen characters the depth and motivation that is often lacking in a film genre that demands a tight 90-minute timeline. A perfect mix of compelling writing, characters who never cease to surprise and just the right amount of schlock.
