The Reckoning: Book Three of the Niceville Trilogy
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Hearing voices in your head takes on a new meaning in Stroud's disturbing conclusion to his macabre Niceville trilogy. The evil Nothing who haunts this Florida town has moved inside, so to speak, and the townspeople, driven by voices in their heads, are on a murderous rampage. Detective Nick Kavanaugh and his wife, attorney Kate, understand what is going on; all they have to do is figure out how to stop it. The Kavanaughs enlist the help of local historian Lemon Featherlight, and ex-cop Charlie Danziger is also on the hunt for answers. There are lots of characters, and each has his or her own story, but Stroud manages to pull it all together and make sense of it, as much as possible, in this mix of the ordinary and the otherworldly. This is the last book of the trilogy, but, like the earlier volumes, it stands on its own. Niceville is a real town on the northwest coast of Florida, and this thrilling supernatural trilogy has surely put it on the map. Recommended for fans of Michael Koryta's genre-blending fiction.--Alesi, Stacy Copyright 2015 Booklist

Whether working in the atmospheric regional mode of James Lee Burke, the modern horror vein of Stephen King, the sardonic gangster idiom of Carl Hiaasen, or the supernatural traditions of H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stoker, Stroud can be a great storyteller, as shown in this sprawling, sometimes confusing conclusion to his Niceville trilogy. Aided by Niceville native Lemon Featherlight, an expert on local history and legends, Det. Nick Kavanaugh pursues a relentless killer who's driven by something evil that haunts the Southern town (in an unnamed state). Meanwhile, Nick's lawyer wife, Kate, does what she can to save her and Nick's foster son, Rainey Teague, from whatever possesses him. A huge cast of characters-some of them vivid, others indistinguishable-must contend with such threats as zombies, demons, and an annoying Chihuahua. General tightening and the removal of several superfluous subplots would have made this a better book. Those who haven't read 2012's Niceville and 2013's The Homecoming are advised to do so first. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Stroud wraps up his peculiar Deep South crime trilogy with a host of made men, undead men, evil spirits, and cops trying as hard as the author to hold everything together. The third book set in the ironically named town of Niceville (Niceville, 2012; The Homecoming, 2013) opens with the police redoubling their efforts to purge the ghosts of the plantation-owning Teague family, which have sown demonic chaos locally. Rainey Teague, a 14-year-old boy seemingly recovered from possession at the end of the previous novel, has taken refuge with the family of Detective Nick Kavanaugh, but Rainey's tossing a young boy in a river suggests all's not well. Nick, meanwhile, has his hands full with a gruesome and inexplicable mass murder of a family, and ex-officer Charles Danziger has re-emerged from his apparent death to journey to the plantation where all this supernatural horror started. To that Stroud adds a subplot involving another cop dealing with mobsters in Florida and one mobster's widow, Delores, using every clichd feminine wile available to manipulate an FBI agent. Stroud's kitchen-sink approach to plotting is almost admirably audacious, weaving in Mario Puzo, Anne Rice, and Stephen King. But the novel has the effect of random pages from each of those authors shuffled together. There are intermittent well-turned smaller scenesNick's wife, Kate, confiding in their housekeeper, or Delores doting over her irksome, flatulent Chihuahua. But the overarching plot is busy and convoluted, never successfully meshing real-world bloodshed with Southern Gothic mysticism. "Maybe some kind of horrible bad evil but totally invisible demonic wasp cloud of mind-warping free-floating crazy is flying around Niceville and it drills into people's skulls and turns them into sadistic psychokiller zombies?" a character jokingly asks. Stroud's not joking, alas, but the story lacks the B-movie campiness such a setup deserves. Clunky closure for a series that's taken on too much ballast. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Hearing voices in your head takes on a new meaning in Stroud's disturbing conclusion to his macabre Niceville trilogy. The evil "Nothing" who haunts this Florida town has moved inside, so to speak, and the townspeople, driven by voices in their heads, are on a murderous rampage. Detective Nick Kavanaugh and his wife, attorney Kate, understand what is going on; all they have to do is figure out how to stop it. The Kavanaughs enlist the help of local historian Lemon Featherlight, and ex-cop Charlie Danziger is also on the hunt for answers. There are lots of characters, and each has his or her own story, but Stroud manages to pull it all together and make sense of it, as much as possible, in this mix of the ordinary and the otherworldly. This is the last book of the trilogy, but, like the earlier volumes, it stands on its own. Niceville is a real town on the northwest coast of Florida, and this thrilling supernatural trilogy has surely put it on the map. Recommended for fans of Michael Koryta's genre-blending fiction. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.

Whether working in the atmospheric regional mode of James Lee Burke, the modern horror vein of Stephen King, the sardonic gangster idiom of Carl Hiaasen, or the supernatural traditions of H.P. Lovecraft and Bram Stoker, Stroud can be a great storyteller, as shown in this sprawling, sometimes confusing conclusion to his Niceville trilogy. Aided by Niceville native Lemon Featherlight, an expert on local history and legends, Det. Nick Kavanaugh pursues a relentless killer who's driven by something evil that haunts the Southern town (in an unnamed state). Meanwhile, Nick's lawyer wife, Kate, does what she can to save her and Nick's foster son, Rainey Teague, from whatever possesses him. A huge cast of characters—some of them vivid, others indistinguishable—must contend with such threats as zombies, demons, and an annoying Chihuahua. General tightening and the removal of several superfluous subplots would have made this a better book. Those who haven't read 2012's Niceville and 2013's The Homecoming are advised to do so first. Agent: Barney Karpfinger, Karpfinger Agency. (Aug.)