Horror is What Happens When Evil Overtakes the Heart.
Joey’s a mechanic. One night, she receives a call from her best friend, asking for his car to be picked up from the infamous body dumping grounds of Baltimore: Leakin Park. When she arrives, there’s little more around than a stalled-out car and a couple of ravens, so she leaves only with the car. Back at the body shop, it doesn’t take long for the smell of rot to permeate the trunk. Inside? A corpse. The cops say her friend did it. His absence is his guilt, but Joey knows better. She will find her missing friend and she will prove his innocence.
But something isn’t right in Baltimore. It’s not just the feeling that someone is always watching from the city’s abandoned buildings... Her search for her friend reveals something much worse hiding under Baltimore. A ghost town, a reaper, regret. Suddenly, the city’s rage and the stink rising out of the dirt make much more sense.
In this transgressive, satire-laced debut, a fourteen-year-old boy inherits his family home and the hatred of all those around him as they seek to seize the inheritance from his cold, dead hands.
When Agatha Benedict plucked Kelly off the city streets to replace her dead cat Poopsie, she neglected to inform him of some very important house traditions. The history of the Benedict Estate prescribes that once the estate owner passes on, a will reading is to take place. However, the reading is more than passing on a loved one's final wishes; it's a figurative gunshot into the air, an alert to all in attendance that a playful game of anything goes murder has begun. The prize? The inheritance, of course. As if visiting, a storm comes in with the guests, trapping everyone on the property for the night. While Kelly plays catch-up on with house rules, once friendly family members have already sharpened their knives. Try as he might, there is no survival if he won't play by the same rules as everyone else.
A uniquely funny and dark murder party with big personalities. A coming-of-age story if growing up felt like being stabbed in the back by everyone you hold dear. As suspenseful as Agatha Christie's And then There Were None, as bitterly sardonic as American Psycho, and as slapstick as Clue, Dead End Drive is a black comedy and satirical look into the world of nihilism and the rat race of life we all see, but pretend we don't because... Let's be honest: is there anything more valuable than having every last need met for life?
