The girl whose heart is a chainsaw, and who doesn’t fear the reaper, is back in her third and final outing. That is, horror superfan, Jade Daniels, who once again stars in the finale of Stephen Graham Jones’ Indian Lake Trilogy, entitled: The Angel of Indian Lake.
Several years have passed since the events of Don’t Fear the Reaper, and Jade is out of prison. In fact, she’s even managed to score a good job, having received special permission to teach History at her favourite high school. Thus, she’s returned to Proofrock, Idaho, and has matured quite a bit. She’s even made a name for herself that isn’t just based around her obsession with slasher movies. That’s all even tailed off some.
Slashers, and monsters, haven’t forgotten about Jade though. In fact, The Angel of Indian Lake starts with a bang, as three teens meet trouble while filming a documentary about town. However, since it happened in the middle of nowhere, the townsfolk aren’t aware that something dangerous has come to town yet again.
Then, the local forest catches on fire, and the need to keep the town safe becomes more paramount than perhaps ever. Locals rush across the lake with chainsaws and axes, ready to do their part of keeping the fire from progressing towards, you guessed it, the Founders’ expensive homes.
They unfortunately have no idea of what awaits them over there.
If you read my reviews of My Heart is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Reaper, you’ll know that I’ve wanted to love these books more than I’ve ended up doing. The first one was confusing, and took a really long time to get going, but the second one was better. It wasn’t great, but it was a notable improvement, and is still my favourite of the Trilogy.
Jade Daniel is an interesting character with movie knowledge and a memory that I wish I possessed, but she isn’t the best narrator, likely by choice. She goes off on a lot of tangents, and can be hard to follow, which is once again an issue with The Angel of Indian Lake. I found a lot of this book pretty confusing, and somewhat hard to follow. There were a lot of tangents, and a lot of name drops from previous books.
I’ll admit that I don’t have the best memory, but even still there’s a lot of name dropping and memory required. As such, you’ll likely get the most out of these books by reading them in succession. I read each one when they came out, and it’s been about four years.
The Angel of Indian Lake also suffers from an everything but the kitchen sink approach. After reading it, and finishing it early this morning, I must admit that I’m not sure if the author had a true ending in mind. There’s so much going on here, and there seems like a new reveal (and/or monster) is right around every corner. Some didn’t even make sense.
Then again, Jade is a pretty unreliable narrator.
I’ve read four Stephen Graham Jones books now, and while I liked them all, I struggled with each one at times. This was no different. It’s very stream of consciousness, and can be quite confusing from moment to moment. Plus, there’s even more going on in this book, which isn’t as tight as its predecessor.
In the end, The Angel of Indian Lake is an ok finale. It doesn’t ace the landing, and is hard to follow along minute by minute, but it’s a decent book nonetheless, which fans of this trilogy should enjoy.
This review is based on a digital ARC of the book, which we were provided through NetGalley.