Lately I've binge read Mercedes Yardley, just lately finishing Pretty Little Dead Girls. Something I appreciate in horror is humor. I'm not much into guts spewing, but if you spew your guts because you're laughing, that's all right by me.
Pretty Little Dead Girls' subtitle is A Novel of Murder and Whimsey. And it is. In the last novel of Ms. Yardley's that I read, Apocalypse Montessa and Nuclear Lu, it was hard to like any of the characters. It was wonderfully written, but even though the protagonists were damaged in childhood, it's hard to get on the side of serial killers.
The opposite happens in Pretty Little Dead Girls. It's so easy to make good, kind characters mushy, but Ms. Yardley has a real talent for making characters likeable without becoming treacle. Even questionable characters are changed for the better by Bryony, the young lady destined to be murdered. She's sweet, but she's not a Pollyanna.
The desert Southwest is a character, too, screaming and creeping to Bryony's father's door, desiring to get its deserty hands on his daughter.
The serial killer is rotten and that's how it should be. Of course, the killings aren't funny, but there are lots of fun bits, a real relief when there is horror all around.
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