Those Across The River by Christopher Buehlman

 

Stealing another professor's wife is not the best way to make it to the top in the academic world.  Blackballed at every campus where he applies, Frank Nichols finally decides that he will have to make a living doing something other than teaching.  Taking Dora with him, Frank leaves the North for a foreign environment to them both--deep in the Old South.  For Frank has a secret.  His great grandfather was the notorious Lucian Savoyard, known for his savagery towards his slaves before and after the Civil War.  The stories of his cruelty are still whispered.  Frank plans to write a book about Lucian and if it is successful, move Dora out of the hot, humid place he has brought her to.

Dora gets a job teaching and the couple are welcomed into the community.  The townspeople are good folk, focused on working, family and God.  But there are hints that there is something else under the smiles.  The way that people turn away when Lucian's name is mentioned.  The fact that hogs are set loose in a monthly ceremony that no one wants to talk about.

When Frank tries to explore and find the ruins of the old plantation house, he finds unsettling sights.  The atmosphere once he gets over the river is tense and foreboding.  He encounters a naked boy whose gaze and malevolence is disturbing and that hastens his departure.  Townspeople start to have unsettling encounters and then random violence starts.  What has Frank's arrival set loose?

This is one of the scariest novels I've ever read.  Buehlman is a master writer, setting the environment of small town, sleepy Georgia town successfully.  The horror starts as a series of slightly unsettling occurrences and then roars to life with can't put down horror writing.  Readers will turn the last page sure that they won't forget this book anytime soon.  This book is recommended for horror readers.