Lakebed by Chris Coppel

​There goes Chris Coppel, making Utah creepy once again. King has Maine, and Coppel has Utah. 
   This is my second read by the author, and it wasn’t chosen based on first impressions, because those, to be honest, were underwhelming.  Legacy had a kitchen sink of clichés approach and stupid characters to boot.  So this was more of a random second chance, easy enough given how short the book is.  And lo and behold, it worked. 
    This book had all the Legacy didn’t, from plot originality (albeit with heavy echoes of Pet Cemetary) to reasonable characters. Kudos to the author for stepping up his game.
    So a nice LA couple gets a mysterious but most opportunely timed job offers to work in a fancy, albeit remote, animal sanctuary. There’s high salary, free place to live, good cause.  It’s a Marlon Brando of an offer, you can’t refuse it and they don’t.  They box up their lives and set off for Utah.  And soon enough, like most things too good to be true, this dream set up turns into a nightmare.  Although technically nightmares are a kind of dreams…
    But soon enough doesn’t quite cover the slow but steady escalation of creeping unease of the narrative, from an erratic psycho boss to erratic nature outside. In fact, the rattlers alone should have done the trick, but…people put up with a lot of crap for a paycheck.
    So this was fun. And not dumb fun either, but legitimately entertaining kind of fun. It featured likeable and charismatic characters and a properly  eerie atmosphere  to engage and disturb the readers in all the right ways that genre fiction does. It featured strategically placed light notes to balance out the overall darkness and a nice dual layer ending.  And it was paced just right. Much to enjoy, genre fans should definitely check this one out.  Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.