Thank you NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this book ahead of time in exchange for a review. It didn't disappoint! Must read!!

I previously enjoyed The Boy In The Box by Fitch and FlameTreePress don't often steer me wrong in the horror genre so requesting Dead Ends was an easy choice.

The title is extremely apt, however the synopsis is not. I was led to believe technology would somehow be involved in the plot and although early on it seemed a possibility the thread vanishes into nothing.
Aside from the wonderfully imagined art exhibit demonstrating the LOUD world of media overdrive we now live in, Dead ends centres on the people.

Told in third person from multiple perspectives, Fitch shows us behind the doors of several residents in a quiet American hamlet: a drunk family man, a reclusive son caring for his mentally ill mother, a disillusioned housewife, a desperate mother and a much hated politician.

Fitch does an incredible job of character creation, although in this case there is little to no diversity to be found.
From the outside the majority of these average white families have achieved the American dream and yet, none of them are happy. All of them stoking the fires of inner rage with misery and discontentment, oblivious to eachothers plight or that of the poverty and racism outside of their tiny neighbourhood. All of them racing towards their own inevitable dead end.

The characters are painfully believable and Fitch did a great job of eliciting my sympathies for perhaps the most undeserving cast I've encountered. The story is bleak and miserable, but so well written I couldn't stop! The pace is slow to start but I invested in the residents quickly and was rewarded with an explosive ending.

This novel comes with all the violent trigger warnings, I'm usually pretty staunch but I did have to skim read a particularly detailed animal cruelty scene. If you don't do well with harm to children or animals, best to avoid or skip across a page or two.

Wow. Just…wow.

This book was a slow start for me (a horror version of a slow burn if you will) but oh my god, the twists in this book had me reeling!! I did NOT see that ending coming, this was a wonderful mix of horror with real life situations being mixed in. The changing POVs helped me to really connect and see each character’s perspective and that also made the twists later all the more impactful for me.

Dead Ends by Marc E Fitch showcases exactly why Flame Tree Press stays at the top with the latest amazing horror novels!

Following a house set on fire in a small neighborhood, Dead Ends starts with a bang. There are seemingly unconnected small slices of life that slowly and intricately start weaving together. What follows is a descent into madness that is second to none. This story specifically follows 4 different humans along their journey of investigating some disturbances in their neighborhood. There is the caregiving son taking care of his mother with Alzheimer's, the drunk husband whose marriage is seemingly on the rocks, the worried mother who is watching her children make some difficult choices, and the politician who just might be trying their best!

I really enjoyed this book. It is more of a slower pace, but when it gets going it is an unstoppable force until the deadly conclusion. I don't think that readers will see the ending coming (I certainly did not!), but that just adds to the charm of this novel. I was left with my mouth open at how brutal some of the actions were throughout this novel.

Go check out this book, because you won't disappointed!

PS - the ending of this story was so deliciously evil that it will be stuck with me for some time to come!

This is a dark, oppressive modern horror, with a fantastic ambiguity about whether there’s a supernatural cause to events, or whether it’s an accumulation of the cruelty that mankind can inflict. I blasted through this in a few days, with the visceral last quarter keeping me going into the early hours - I needed closure before I could sleep.

Anyway, Dead Ends has a well drawn set of characters placed in conflict with each other and a - largely off page- other character, leading to a grimly realistic descent into increasing violence, and ultimately a potential moment of catharsis…. My only complaint was the number of men with a name starting with J (I’m easily confused by names!!)…

I’ve not heard of Marc E Fitch before - if this is indicative of his earlier work then I’ll be buying it.

Wow… I’m not sure I even have words for this whirlwind of a story I just read. This was the most miserable, staggering book I’ve ever read. I dreaded every new line, but I was completely sucked in and spent most of the day engrossed with this story.
 
The writing is addictive and so easy-flowing. The way the author managed to seamlessly integrate each character's story was flawless. A lot of this book had you wondering is there a supernatural side to this story, or is this just the human psyche going wild? Coming out of it, I’m still not sure, but that just made it all the more better. You feel like you’re losing your grip along with the characters.
There was very much an ominous feeling overlying everything, and considering the characters were doomers a lot of the time, this story is very down. You’re observing the all too real downward spirals of a town, so I honestly wouldn’t recommend this to someone who may be sensitive to this kind of thing (I at multiple points felt like I needed a breather myself).
This isn’t a classical horror story, but this is the first one that had me truly scared, either because I saw my thoughts, fears, and feelings reflected or because everything that took place could happen to anyone. There is nothing more scary than reality.
 
This was the most realistic cast of characters I’ve ever read. I found every single person relatable in their own way, which is quite a feat considering this contains some people with completely opposite political beliefs to mine. The author manages to make them so human that even if their beliefs are very much not my thing, I still found myself sympathising for one reason or another. They are so obviously flawed and at times unlikable, but you can’t help but understand. I really feel like I’ve gone through the wringer and back; I’m emotionally exhausted from it all!
I would also like to point out how much I appreciated being able to read from multiple different POVs. It did not slip my attention how we got certain judgements from one person about the other, but then reading from their POV shows you clearly that’s not how they feel or are. Being wrong with our judgements is something that happens all the time in the real world, so it was a subtle but glaringly obvious commentary on humans. Honestly though, this whole book in general was.
 
The ending had me in shock. Not because it was unpredictable but because of how mind-shatteringly real it was. The dread I was already feeling got immensely amplified; I can’t put into words what it was like going through it. It left me speechless, even though I wasn’t talking! If I didn’t know better, I would think this was non-fiction, like you’re telling me absolutely none of this happened? Every person and event here could easily have been real. The attention to detail and the weaving of storylines was just phenomenal.
 
As gripping as this story was, it was very, very slow. It is character-driven, which means you will spend a lot of time with them, and here you definitely do. Because of that, I felt information (especially about Lucas) and thoughts were repeated unnecessarily. It seemed like we got many spiralling thoughts that I could’ve sworn I read at an earlier point, but maybe that’s realistic for people in these states of mind. Either way, with this being as slow as it was, it seemed necessary to really get to know these characters because it makes the ending all the more impactful. But maybe just a little trimming down could’ve taken the story to the next level.
 
Honestly I want to say I will be checking out the author's other books, but quite frankly I’m scared to; he’s just too good at what he does!
 
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an early copy!

Upon realising there was a new Marc E Fitch novel on the horizon I could not hide my excitement as Boy in the Box (2020) was easily one of the very best horror novels of the last decade. It is a tragedy this truly terrifying book does not pick up more press or reader buzz and is the ultimate story of a camping trip gone wrong in the Adirondack Mountains. It oozes menace, threat and has a brilliantly shrouded and bleak supernatural twist which rips your throat out with its memorable ending. If you have never heard of Boy in the Box, do yourself a favour and read that along with Dead Ends. Both are published by Flame Tree Press on their impressive Fiction Without Frontiers range.

I went into Dead Ends knowing zero about it, the simple fact that Marc E Fitch had a new novel was more than enough to hook me in and shunt it straight to the top of my TBR pile. Dead Ends was a highly original and decidedly odd dark drama which encompassed small town horror, paranoia, families in crisis, politics, gossip, social problems and a house which may or not be haunted. There is a lot of ambiguity in this perfectly pitched novel and it would undoubtedly have been much easier to write a story about an ‘evil’ house which infects or pollutes the area around it, that the much subtler drama Fitch delivers.

Think back to Traffic (2001), the Oscar winning film by Steven Soderbergh which takes a series of stories connected to the war on drugs and they loosely string them together. Dead Ends does exactly this but the stories are much more closely connected, there are four key stories all of which are living normal middle class suburban lives in a small community on the outskirts of a city. When the story opens a sixteen-year-old teenager is hiding out and smoking dope in an abandoned dilapidated house close to where he lives. In subsequent chapters we find out much more about Lucas Lovett and his many problems (standard teenage delinquent stuff) from the many other characters. One of the great strengths of Dead Ends is that the clever rotating perspective allows us to see each of characters from multiple (and often unkind) perspectives.

The main thrust of the story is built around the ripple effect a huge fire which destroys the Widner house causes in the local neighbourhood, particularly Ridgewood Drive where all the main characters live. Just to be clear, Dead Ends is a very bleak and downbeat book as none of the characters are particularly happy or contented with their lives and are ultra-quick to point the finger of blame somebody else for their troubles. At various points the narrative explores the fear of who “they” or “them” are, some sort of metaphysical boogieman which is going to rape their woman and steal their children. The problem is nobody can define who “they” are and the answer is to buy more guns or demonise the teenager Lucas Lovett.

Lovett is strangely absent from most of Dead Ends but dominates proceedings after he becomes the prime suspect in burning the house and then disappears when the locals declare him the poster-boy for delinquent youth and the faults of the nation. Even though the novel might be too slow for some, I found the escalation of events to be incredibly realistic and the shocking turn at around 50% particularly caught me on the hop. Even beyond the four main narratives there were other characters who contributed much to proceedings, including the young journalist and the policeman who is the 911 responder to the escalating incidents.

All four narratives were equally convincing and I really felt for John Ballard who was dealing with both marital and a drink problem. His wife Jessica was at the end of her tether and John was at war with the world and becomes obsessed with the fire, Lovett’s obvious guilt and the fact that the police do nothing eats him up. Vernon Trimble looks after his elderly mother, who has Alzheimer’s, he is unable to cope but knows if his mother ends up in a care facility then he might lose his home. He is also a true crime buff and he and John feed each other’s obsession.

Elizabeth Tutt is an elected local politician and is called a “Hillary Wannabe” and is treated like an outsider as she has only lived there for a couple of years. Single, she hopes to get re-elected but struggles to connect with those she is supposed to represent. However, shortly after the fire she is plagued by her door being repeatedly phantom knocked very late at night, which brings her into the folds of the newly formed Neighbourhood Watch led by John and Vernon. Amber Locke has the final plotline, a bored housewife with a husband, two sons and two huge untrained dogs she hates. Amber feels trapped in her life and is scared her fifteen-year-old son is heading down the same dangerous path as Lucas Lovett, with whom he was friends.

I do not want to say much about any potential supernatural events and the ripple effect the house has on the story, your interpretation of this part of the horrifying events which unfold might be different from mine. The end of the novel was truly haunting; however, I had a feeling in my guts that might be the case with very normal people doing horrible things and the novel had a lot to say about modern day America, gun crime and why many feel they are forgotten by the system or have a voice which is ignored. Or maybe I’m reading too much into Dead Ends? Who knows, either way it was an outstanding follow-up (and completely different) from Boy in the Box.