David Niall Wilson Roll Them Bones

Roll Them Bones

David Niall Wilson

Cemetery Dance, 2003, $30, 130 pages

ISBN: 1587670682

Big Ronnie demands his three childhood associates, who became his friends after the incident bonded them, Jason, Frank, and Lizzy return home to Random, Illinois to complete what they started years ago. They thought they had destroyed the horror, but as Ronnie has informed them, they failed to finish the job. This Halloween they must achieve what they did not do when they were preadolescents.

Though years have passed, the incident when they were twelve years old still haunts each of them. Thus the trio race home to Ronnie's summoning. It has wrecked ones marriage, and permeates every word of the horror novelist amongst them. Now the quartet knows they must confront it again, but each is wary, as they know they ROLL THE BONES for the second time, but this time luck may not be with them, and if not they will roll death.

Readers will wonder from the start what did the foursome confront as kids and will meet shortly as adults. The tension builds up until the altercation, but then picks up even more suspense until the final watery climax. David Niall Wilson cleverly keeps the audience off balance for a while, wondering if this is a psychological thriller or supernatural chiller, until the author brings the readers and the quartet into the beginnings of the confrontation. ROLL THEM BONES is a magnificent tale about a foursome who can't go home while others may have physically left but never mentally departed.