The Walking by Bentley Little

Bentley Little is a Bram Stoker Award winner, the award given by the Horror Writer’s Association. The Walking is a prime example of Little’s work. I was hooked on this book from the first sentence in the Prologue which was, “John Hawkes died and kept walking.”The main character is Miles Huerdeen, a private investigator, who is drawn into “The Walking” when his father dies and starts walking. The dead are walking to Wolf Canyon, which used to be a witch community in the Arizona desert but is now under Wolf Canyon Lake. Miles meets other characters, some good and some evil, who are also following the dead. His descriptions of the dead (gray, cold, rubbery skin and dead white eyes) were both scary and sad. I found the book gripping because I didn’t know what evil was drawing the dead to the Canyon or which characters would live or die. All in all, a really good scary read although the reader should be aware that Little can be quite gruesome and there is some graphic violence.