Bones of Our Stars, Blood of Our World

Comics writer Bunn (the Uncanny X-Men series) makes his full-length prose debut with this over-the-top shocker crafted from the well-worn template of the small-town horror novel. Wilson Island, an otherwise placid vacation destination in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, is rocked one summer week by the discovery of the gruesomely eviscerated corpses of several locals. The murderer—an anonymous masked assailant who calls himself “Mr. No-Face”—serves as one of the novel’s narrators. But which of the island’s residents is he? Denny Danvers, the local drug dealer dubbed Warlock by his clients? Madhouse Quinn, the unofficial leader of the island’s unhoused community? Or maybe someone as seemingly normal as art student Dean Kramer, whose unrequited love for island sweetheart Willa Hanson is complicated by the revelation that she’s pregnant by her irresponsible boyfriend Kenny Smythe? While readers puzzle over the killer’s identity and motives, Bunn introduces another plot wrinkle: a surging rat and roach infestation suggests the island may be under siege by unnatural forces. The story barrels toward a splattery conclusion that ties together all of its weird phenomena but makes most of the characters expendable fodder for the under-explained final horror. This is recommended only for the strong of stomach. (Nov.)