Book Review: "Dark Lines: Haunting Tales of Horror" by Jack Harding (2022)
Dark Lines: Haunting Tales of Horror Book Review
Written by Stuart D. Monroe
Published by Dark Lit Press
Written by Jack Harding
2022, 224 pages, Fiction
Released on April 30th, 2022
Review:
When horror works best…when it’s clicking and clacking and shredding your nerves…it should leave you with a sense of disorientation and a mild form of confusion. The sense of everything being a dream should be strong. Clearly, Jack Harding also subscribes to this theory as well. With Dark Lines: Haunting Tales of Horror, Jack has compiled sixteen tales designed to up the ante with each successive read. While that may not happen one hundred percent of the time, there are still more than enough nasty surprises and superbly executed obvious twists to keep you working the pages.
Dark Lines: Haunting Tales of Horror offers a few different flavors that lean heavily into twists and even misdirection to hook you into a story after story where things are very rarely what they seem and where you often have to double back and reread some passages. This is often done for the enjoyment and knowing the “punchline”, so to speak, and appreciating the details more on the second go-round. Occasionally you’ll double back because it gets a tad confusing, but that’s because Harding is so damn sharp with his descriptive powers that sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. That descriptive power sets Harding apart; the description of the old man in “The End of the Line” is perhaps one of the finest character introductions ever. I could literally smell that old bastard!
There are a couple of stories, like “Cells” and “Be A Man”, that leave you wanting more time in that dark place; they end too soon. A story like “Sadie’s Snake”, however, ends at exactly the right time and with that picture perfect playful punch. “Shadow of a Dream” was eerily reminiscent of Stephen King’s “The Boogeyman”, though the ending was somewhat anticlimactic. Still, the overall narrative thread of escalating terror where the stakes keep getting higher just flat-out hums. The layout of the stories needs to be commended. Some stories work quite well as a standalone tale while others feel connective to the narrative as a whole. Diversity is the spice of horror fiction, is it not?
The standouts are “A Doctor’s Note” for its fuck it ending, “React” for its historical punch, “The Silent Treatment” for hitting every guy a little too close to home, and “Driving in the Dark” for pulling your heart out slowly with a soundtrack to accompany what you know is coming but are powerless to look away from. I must also add that I’m not a particularly rabid fan of “The Boss” Bruce Springsteen, but I’ve found myself listening to more of his stuff after this story. It’s THE highlight of the collection.
Harding’s penchant for deep dive descriptiveness makes you feel the peril without knowing where it’s coming from, turning each story into a bit of a guessing game. That makes for a damn fun read. Dark Lines: Haunting Tales of Terror certainly lives up to its name and lets you know that the best is yet to come from Jack Harding. Stay tuned.
Grade:
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
