The Handyman

by Bentley Little, TBD

Overview

Daniel Martin has never forgotten his childhood encounters with Frank Watkins, the man who built his family a summer home out of cardboard and plywood. Frank's gaze was oddly confusing, as if he was attempting to discern the proper way to behave because he didn't know how to respond in a human manner. Since Frank obviously wasn't an alien, young Daniel thought maybe the man was crazy. In the end, Daniel would learn the terrifying truth about Frank Watkins. And as an adult, Daniel is about to discover there are more of THEM out there...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781587676574
Publisher:	Cemetery Dance Publications
Publication date:	03/13/2020
Pages:	340
Sales rank:	177,763
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.99(h) x 0.76(d)

About the Author

Bentley Little is the author of numerous novels, short stories, articles, essays, and reviews. After earning a BA in communications and an MA in English, he sold his soul and abandoned all artistic integrity, working for eight years as a bureaucrat for a midsized city in Orange County, California. His first novel, The Revelation, won the 1990 Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award for best first novel. A Luddite with no access to the Internet, hee still listens to vinyl records and does not own a cell phone, an iPod, an MP3 player, or a Blackberry. He has one wife and one son.

Editorial Reviews

09/25/2017
Little (The Collection) wraps a fascinating supernatural mystery in a suffocating cocoon of horror. Daniel Martin is a typical Southern California kid in the 1980s, until his parents decide to purchase a vacation home in rural Arizona. Their new house will be constructed from a prefab kit—and the strange handyman across the street offers to build it for a low price. Little do Daniel and his innocent family realize that everyone who comes into contact with weird and evil Frank Watkins meets malevolence sooner or later. After Frank moves away, the corpse of a child is found in the basement of his old home. Shortly thereafter, Daniel’s brother dies gruesomely. And that’s just the beginning. As the story unfolds, readers see that the evil Frank causes has popped up across the country and over decades. With each taut chapter, Little skillfully reels in the reader, climaxing in an oddly believable paranormal finale. Little’s horrifying tale will entice even readers who are not fans of the genre, and stay with them for a long time to come. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

The strength of Chris Ciulla’s performance lies in his ability to ground this increasingly macabre story in genuine and relatable emotions. Though Daniel Martin was only a boy when he first met Frank—the neighbor who built his family’s summer house—he knew immediately there was something very wrong with the man. But no one could imagine the truth about Frank, or the secrets he concealed in every shoddy, unstable house he left in his wake. In recounting Daniel’s quest to hunt Frank down, Ciulla makes his fear, nostalgia, sorrow, and hatred visceral. He conveys Frank’s own voice with an eerie combination of charm and brutality that is both chilling and compelling. Listeners will be gripped by every horrible discovery and gruesome turn. B.E.K. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2018 - AudioFile