The Night House follows teen Richard Elauved as he’s sent to the remote town of Ballantyne to live with his Aunt and Uncle following the tragic deaths of his parents. Carrying the hurt caused by his parents’ untimely demise, Richard assumes the role of bully terrifying his peers and classmates at school. One afternoon, Richard and a frightened classmate attempt a prank on a member of the community and it does not go as planned. The results were gruesome to say the least and now Richard is in trouble with the law. Can Richard prove his innocence or is he in for consequences beyond his comprehension?

While I haven’t really been able to get into Jo Nesbo’s titular Harry Hole crime fiction series, I have enjoyed two of his stand alone novels; THE KINGDOM and BLOOD ON SNOW. When I saw he had his first horror novel in the pipeline, I grabbed it the second it appeared on Netgalley. While I received my copy a few months back, I wanted to wait until I was firmly in the grip of the spooky season before I began reading. The result? It was OK.

To be honest, there were moments where I wanted to give up. The first half is exceptionally poor, I thought. So much so that I rolled over last night before going to sleep and said to my wife with exasperation, “this book suuuucks.” It wasn’t until I hit maybe the last third this afternoon that things began to unravel and the mystery at the core of the book became clearer to me. Although the story finished extremely strong, I can’t recommend a book that I dreaded reading two thirds of. Even though all the reveals in the final twenty five pages made me grin like a madman, it still isn’t enough to save it on the whole. I’m sure maybe someone could take this novel, dissect it and put it back together to make a hell of a film though.