IN THE WOODS THEY WAIT, #Deathtober goes Gothic

IN THE WOODS THEY WAIT: A Novel
CARRIE LEE SOUTH
Little, Brown and Company (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: A park ranger in Devil’s Den becomes obsessed with the case of a missing child—a case that mirrors the disappearance of her own brother, whom she lost in the woods many years ago—and the possibility that both were taken by something vicious and unnatural that lives deep in the Ozarks.

From a powerful new voice, a story that's at once a haunting southern gothic and a satisfying page-turner, perfect for fans of Stephen King and Liz Moore alike.

Fifteen years ago, Audrey Figg's little brother, Benny, vanished on a family vacation to Devil's Den state park, a day that split her life in two. Now, Audrey is a park ranger in the very same woods with expertise in wilderness search and rescue. Audrey has found a rhythm to her days: training new rangers, tending to injured hikers, protecting the backcountry, and still, searching.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Moving between past and present timelines usually feels forced, like the author wants to create psychological tension but erroneously believes the straightforward linear approach can't do that well enough. Debut author Carrie Lee South thought the trauma Audrey, our PoV close-third-person character, is introduced in 2004 as she wander the woods of Devil's Den State Park...a real place, quite beautiful...with some lovely, meditative prose setting a mood that's soon enough shattered along with an essential part of Audrey that can't be fixed: She saw her little brother Benny walking too far away and did nothing, didn't follow him, made no attempt to care for his safety.

He's never been seen since. No body, nothing but absence.

Fifteen years later, Park Ranger Audrey's receiving a trainee, so clearly done the job well for some time now; no lovely meditative prose, though always with Author South's surprisingly assured touch with telling details observed. Audrey is all business because she can't let herself be anything resembling happy. I was here my interest in the story picked up. This is a grief response I've become familiar with. It betrays your loved one for you to feel normal human warmth or closeness or, perish forbid, love.

No wonder religion's tortures and misery disguised as "love" remain in the populace. We're wired for it. How grim a prospect is that.

The 2019 Audrey faces an existential crisis when young Ivy goes missing in an eerie echo of Benny's disappearance. Audrey's faced trouble in her time as a park ranger but this...so intimately familiar a situation, so closely similar people, feelings, circumstances...it's all perfectly designed to hook into Audrey's unfixable breakage as a human being.

And here I come back to my initial alternating-timelines argument from above: In a deft, assured way I associate with authors of considerable age and experience, Carrie Lee South uses the back-and-forth not solely to ratchet up tension (it does, though), but to introduce previously unrevealed details, a steady accumulation of new information surfacing in Audrey's mind that reveals important clues. They lead to major, perhaps incredibly in the original sense, helpful avenues of exploration in 2019 as well as resolutions to 2004's trauma.

So effective. So very convenient. I could've whacked stars off for it, feeling cheated; instead I sat back, impressed at the care and affection Author South lavished on Audrey, her survivor guilt, and the resolutions never available to Audrey before going through the forest fire.

Because it's true, the only way out...ever...is through.