We Are Always Tender with Our Dead

LaRocca (Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke) opens his Burnt Sparrow series with this bleak contemporary horror outing set in a small New Hampshire town that feels cursed with misery and violence. Teenage protagonist Rupert Cromwell’s mother recently died and his father’s grip on reality has been loosening ever since. When a horrific crime rocks their community, leaving many dead, the town elders make the bizarre decision to leave the crime scene exactly as is, bodies and all, “for the foreseeable future,” and tap Rupert and his dad to serve as “Preservers” responsible for ensuring that the scene remains intact. Things take an even stranger and more sinister turn as, through this job, Rupert becomes unwittingly entangled with the town’s most dangerous man and his deeply closeted wife. Themes of sexual identity and discovery figure prominently alongside an examination of death and its attendant rituals. LaRocca creates a lushly gothic atmosphere that smothers both the reader and his characters. The extremely graphic violence, decay, and taboo sex scenes may prove too much for squeamish readers who aren’t prepared to wade into territory quite this dark. Only those with iron stomachs need apply. (Sept.)