The Backwoods
By Edward Lee
Leisure Books, 2005
Reviewed by William I. Lengeman III
(First published in Apex Digest)

Things are going well for Patricia White, a successful Washington, DC attorney married to a restaurant critic. This being a horror novel, though, it's obvious that things can't go well for long - and they don't.

When Patricia's brother-in-law Dwayne is killed - in rather nasty fashion - she heads home to offer solace to her sister Judy. Home, in this case, being rural southern Virginia, where Judy runs the family's crab business and which Patricia has done her best to stay clear of following a traumatic incident in her teens.

Before long several of the Squatters, reserved clannish types who live on the family land and work in the family business, are killed and evidence turns up that suggests that they are producing methamphetamine. All the while high-powered developer Gordon Felps is looking to buy Judy's land so he can reap the bounty from building condominiums.

Things spiral downward and Patricia continues having dreams that swing from highly sexually charged fantasies to horrific nightmares. The sexual feelings carry over into the daylight hours and on more than one occasion Patricia nearly cheats on her husband with Ernie, Judy's handyman and an old friend.

As events wind to a close the killings continue, including several characters the reader might not have expected to fall by the wayside. It gradually becomes apparent that the Squatters will not be trifled with and have a considerable ace in the hole. The ending is not exactly a surprise, at least not to anyone who's been paying attention, though the brief epilogue seemed perhaps a bit gratuitous and unlikely.

Lee has published somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 books now. I've been meaning to read a few, but this is the first one I've gotten around to. I must admit, given his reputation as the "master of hardcore horror," that what transpires here was tamer than expected. Which is not to say that there wasn't a great deal of really grim and nasty stuff and loads and loads of sex, because there certainly was.

One of Lee's biggest strengths, at least in this work, seems to be creating rather convincing - and quite unpleasant - redneck types, though at time they veer a little close to the realm of stereotype. Overall the book moved along at a good clip and holds the reader's attention. While it may not make anyone's list of great horror novels of the ages, I’m gonna assume that probably wasn't the point.

Copyright 2007 – William I. Lengeman III