The Fallen by Dale Bailey kept me up way past my bedtime

The Fallen by Dale Bailey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sauls Run is a quaint little town where people live to a ripe old age and everyone is super nice. But every few years murder and mayhem erupt, only to calm down yet again. All of that seems to cycle through the suffering and rest of a creature that lives deep in Holland mines - a secret that isn't revealed in brilliant detail until the last 20 pages.

Bailey tells the story mostly from the point of view of Henry Sleep, a tragic character who has lost both his mother and father and goes back to Sauls Run to bury his most recently departed parent - is father. Into that mix is the sherrif - an imposter with a history of creating his own murder and mayhem. But the town has a good effect on the sherrif as 99% of the time he is good and kind, while the other 1% of the time his evil side makes an appearance with a hunger that can only be sated by killing something. Bailey's portrayal of a dog slaying was something I could live without forever, but I suppose it was injected to illustrate the madness and evil that was lurking in Sauls Run just below the surface.

I admit that I really did like the book, though it did lack the smoothness of a practiced author. There were many transitions that didn't work well. Still, on the whole, this was a good read that kept me up way past my bedtime last night.

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