How Bad Things Can Get is the latest gruesome thriller from Darcy Coates.
A group of podcast fans is invited to Prosperity Island which is privately owned by a famous influencer where there should be plenty of games and parties. A guest named Ruth, and she has a secret. Twenty years previously, she was the sole survivor of a suicide cult. The games are getting more dangerous, and Ruth is starting to learn that her past may not be as buried as she had hoped.
This is a pretty intense tale. Coates doesn’t shy away from some pretty graphic violence. It’s a bit of a standard setup of a group of people stuck on an isolated island when something evil breaks out and starts picking attendees off.
Coates is a competent writer, but she relies on some pretty formulaic tropes in the horror genre. There are a few interesting characters among the more cliche ones.
There are some moments where Coates delves into some of the psychology of some of these people who have left the cult. There is a sense that she may have done some research even though I am certainly no expert on the human phenomenon of getting so ingrained in a community such as the one depicted in this novel.
The brutality depicted in this novel is pretty extreme, so it isn’t for the squeamish.
Coates does a decent job of keeping this reader engaged at any rate, so she is certainly an effective storyteller.
Anyway, I occasionally dip into the more macabre literary experiences, and Coates has once again proven to be an interesting addition to the genre if nothing else.
Now, I am going to sample a genre with which I have had very little exposure. I am going to try one short volume from the master of the western with Louis L’amour’s Kiowa Trail.
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