In this story, Erica rolls up into the town of Badwater where a couple of children have died under violent circumstances. Oddly, the killings were over a year apart, which is unusual for monsters. Erica hopes that there's nothing to find here, but, as per the title, hope is a knife.
Her arrival coincides with a spate of supernatural violence that she must get to the centre of before anyone else has to die. The answer to the mystery may mean she has to make a horrific decision.
I actually preferred this to any of the graphic novels. The artwork has always been a bugbear for me and of course, that's not here. Instead we get more inside Erica's head than we ever have done before.
Kiersten White's prose is evocative and damned effective. For the frst third of the book, you could almost be forgiven for thinking that Erica is just a side character. There's a lot of scene setting and introduction of the various inhabitants of the town. All the more potential victims.
The action scenes are well handled and the monster is depicted suitably nastily. There's a genuine tension in the second half of the book as Erica struggles with the dilemma she finds herself faced with.
This is a good read for all fans of the graphic novels, and a good jumping in point for those who've not had the pleasure.
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