Soze Says

William Meikle is fast becoming a very reliable author for me to turn to when I want a relatively quick and definitely engaging read, and The Dunfield Terror is no exception. It tells the tale of a small team of workmen who battle to keep the roads open during a fierce snow storm that descends on their coastal town, bringing with it something known to the locals as "The Fucker" - a glowing fog that causes havoc whenever it touches anything solid. Meikle then goes back in time to detail the experiment that brought this fog into our world, and for the rest of this short novel, goes back and forth between these two threads.

I really enjoyed the present timeline and the carnage caused by the fog. Meikle effortlessly weaves his written word to pull the reader into the townsfolk's plight, all told from the POV of one of the workmen in the first person. However, after an exciting initial foray, I found the origin story of the fog far less engaging, and mostly powered through these sections to get back to what I eventually came to term "the action".

There's also a great little bit toward the end that eschews the previous alternating narrative structure to go even further back in time, which in and of itself, would make a fantastic novella if expanded with a few more characters. But ultimately, I'm not sure how enamored I was with the very end of The Dunfield Terror with Meikle offering enough to tie the two major threads together while allowing ambiguity to prevail.

All in all then, this was a more than satisfying read that should appeal to fans of Lovecraft and small towns being menaced.

3.5 Fused Appendages for The Dunfield Terror.

The preceding is based on on an eARC provided by DarkFuse Publishing in exchange for an honest review.