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Bone White
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Horror (2017)A landscape of frozen darkness punctuated by grim, gray days.
The feeling like a buzz in your teeth.
The scrape of bone on bone. . .
Paul Gallo saw the report on the news: a mass murderer leading police to his victims graves, in remote Dread's Hand, Alaska.
It's not even a town; more like the bad memory of a town. The same bit of wilderness where his twin brother went missing a year ago. As the bodies are exhumed, Paul travels to Alaska to get closure and put his grief to rest.
But the mystery is only beginning. What Paul finds are superstitious locals who talk of the devil stealing souls, and a line of wooden crosses to keep what's in the woods from coming out. He finds no closure because no one can explain exactly what happened to Danny.
And the more he searches for answers, the more he finds himself becoming part of the mystery. . .
The feeling like a buzz in your teeth.
The scrape of bone on bone. . .
Paul Gallo saw the report on the news: a mass murderer leading police to his victims graves, in remote Dread's Hand, Alaska.
It's not even a town; more like the bad memory of a town. The same bit of wilderness where his twin brother went missing a year ago. As the bodies are exhumed, Paul travels to Alaska to get closure and put his grief to rest.
But the mystery is only beginning. What Paul finds are superstitious locals who talk of the devil stealing souls, and a line of wooden crosses to keep what's in the woods from coming out. He finds no closure because no one can explain exactly what happened to Danny.
And the more he searches for answers, the more he finds himself becoming part of the mystery. . .
321 pages, Paperback
First published July 25, 2017
651 people are currently reading
16336 people want to read
About the author
Ronald Malfi
42 books3,599 followersRonald Malfi is the bestselling, award-winning author of many novels and novellas in the horror, mystery, and thriller genres. In 2011, his novel, Floating Staircase, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for best novel by the Horror Writers Association, and also won a gold IPPY award. Perhaps his most well-received novel, Come with Me (2021), about a man who learns a dark secret about his wife after she's killed, has received stellar reviews, including a starred review from BookPage, and Publishers Weekly has said, "Malfi impresses in this taut, supernaturally tinged mystery... and sticks the landing with a powerful denouement. There’s plenty here to enjoy."
In 2024, Malfi was awarded the William G. Wilson Maryland Author Award for adult fiction.
His most recent novels include Senseless (2025) and Small Town Horror (2024), both of which received favorable reviews and saw Malfi stretch his authorial voice.
Come with Me (2021) and Black Mouth (2022), tackle themes of grief and loss, and of the effects of childhood trauma and alcoholism, respectively. Both books have been critically praised, with Publishers Weekly calling Black Mouth a "standout" book of the year. These novels were followed by Ghostwritten (2022), a collection of four subtly-linked novellas about haunted books and the power of the written word. Ghostwritten received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called the book a "wonderfully meta collection...vibrantly imagined," and that "Malfi makes reading about the perils of reading a terrifying delight."
Among his most popular works is December Park, a coming-of-age thriller set in the '90s, wherein five teenage boys take up the hunt for a child murderer in their hometown of Harting Farms, Maryland. In interviews, Malfi has expressed that this is his most autobiographical book to date. In 2015, this novel was awarded the Beverly Hills International Book Award for best suspense novel. It has been optioned several times for film.
Bone White (2017), about a man searching for his lost twin brother in a haunted Alaskan mining town, was touted as "an elegant, twisted, gripping slow-burn of a novel that burrows under the skin and nestles deep," by RT Book Reviews, and has also been optioned for television by Fox21/Disney and Amazon Studios.
His novels Little Girls (2015) and The Night Parade (2016) explore broken families forced to endure horrific and extraordinary circumstances, which has become the hallmark for Malfi's brand of intimate, lyrical horror fiction.
His earlier works, such as Via Dolorosa (2007) and Passenger (2008) explored characters with lost or confused identities, wherein Malfi experimented with the ultimate unreliable narrators. He maintained this trend in his award-winning novel, Floating Staircase (2011), which the author has suggested contains "multiple endings for the astute reader."
His more "monstery" novels, such as Snow (2010) and The Narrows (2012) still resonate with his inimitable brand of literary cadence and focus on character and story over plot. Both books were highly regarded by fans and reviewers in the genre.
A bit of a departure, Malfi published the crime drama Shamrock Alley in 2009, based on the true exploits of his own father, a former Secret Service agent. The book was optioned several times for film.
Ronald Malfi was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1977, the eldest of four children, and eventually relocated to Maryland, where he currently resides along the Chesapeake Bay.
When he's not writing, he's performing with the rock band VEER, who can be found at veerband.net and on Twitter at @VeerBand
Visit with Ronald Malfi on Facebook, Twitter (@RonaldMalfi), or at http://www.ronaldmalfi.com.
In 2024, Malfi was awarded the William G. Wilson Maryland Author Award for adult fiction.
His most recent novels include Senseless (2025) and Small Town Horror (2024), both of which received favorable reviews and saw Malfi stretch his authorial voice.
Come with Me (2021) and Black Mouth (2022), tackle themes of grief and loss, and of the effects of childhood trauma and alcoholism, respectively. Both books have been critically praised, with Publishers Weekly calling Black Mouth a "standout" book of the year. These novels were followed by Ghostwritten (2022), a collection of four subtly-linked novellas about haunted books and the power of the written word. Ghostwritten received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called the book a "wonderfully meta collection...vibrantly imagined," and that "Malfi makes reading about the perils of reading a terrifying delight."
Among his most popular works is December Park, a coming-of-age thriller set in the '90s, wherein five teenage boys take up the hunt for a child murderer in their hometown of Harting Farms, Maryland. In interviews, Malfi has expressed that this is his most autobiographical book to date. In 2015, this novel was awarded the Beverly Hills International Book Award for best suspense novel. It has been optioned several times for film.
Bone White (2017), about a man searching for his lost twin brother in a haunted Alaskan mining town, was touted as "an elegant, twisted, gripping slow-burn of a novel that burrows under the skin and nestles deep," by RT Book Reviews, and has also been optioned for television by Fox21/Disney and Amazon Studios.
His novels Little Girls (2015) and The Night Parade (2016) explore broken families forced to endure horrific and extraordinary circumstances, which has become the hallmark for Malfi's brand of intimate, lyrical horror fiction.
His earlier works, such as Via Dolorosa (2007) and Passenger (2008) explored characters with lost or confused identities, wherein Malfi experimented with the ultimate unreliable narrators. He maintained this trend in his award-winning novel, Floating Staircase (2011), which the author has suggested contains "multiple endings for the astute reader."
His more "monstery" novels, such as Snow (2010) and The Narrows (2012) still resonate with his inimitable brand of literary cadence and focus on character and story over plot. Both books were highly regarded by fans and reviewers in the genre.
A bit of a departure, Malfi published the crime drama Shamrock Alley in 2009, based on the true exploits of his own father, a former Secret Service agent. The book was optioned several times for film.
Ronald Malfi was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1977, the eldest of four children, and eventually relocated to Maryland, where he currently resides along the Chesapeake Bay.
When he's not writing, he's performing with the rock band VEER, who can be found at veerband.net and on Twitter at @VeerBand
Visit with Ronald Malfi on Facebook, Twitter (@RonaldMalfi), or at http://www.ronaldmalfi.com.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,221 reviews
July 20, 2017
4.5 stars!
It usually takes a lot for a book to scare me and this book was able to do that. I always love a good book that does this to me. It was terrifying and so very creepy. The whole town was creepy, even the children were creepy. If you want a book to creep you out, and scare you this is one that definitely will creep you out. Nothing really scares me but this one did.
A journey that is so unsettling, into the outer reaches of Alaskan civilisation, it’s a story of small town superstition, malevolent forces and one man’s journey to unlock the mysterious disappearance of his twin brother. Malfi has created an engaging and suspenseful story that will creep you out. The setting is in an Alaskan mining town of Dread’s Hand in search of a missing man. It’s a town where locals will look on any stranger with distrust. Where children wear masks made of animal fur and stare at you through the masks’ ragged eye holes. And a town where death might be the only escape. Out of the blue a reclusive town local, Joe Mallory, hands himself into the police claiming to have murdered eight people. The police don’t believe him, but dig anyway, after the discovery of the bodies the story becomes international news. The last text that Paul Gallo received from his brother was that he was in Dread’s Hand, the area where the bodies were found. He is determined to find out if his brother Danny is one of the victims. He goes to Alaska to meet with the officer in charge, Jill Ryerson. He also meets a journalist who tells him stories of the strange goings-on in the area. Is there something or someone evil there?
And why do a lot of people seem to fear Paul when he shows pictures of his twin brother asking them if they have seen him and tells them that he looks exactly like him and why one lady actually calls him a monster?
I will definitely be reading more books by Ralph Malfi. I love to find a book that scares me and this one just did that. This town is so creepy and spooky.
I want to thank Netgalley, the publisher and Ronald Malfi for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
It usually takes a lot for a book to scare me and this book was able to do that. I always love a good book that does this to me. It was terrifying and so very creepy. The whole town was creepy, even the children were creepy. If you want a book to creep you out, and scare you this is one that definitely will creep you out. Nothing really scares me but this one did.
A journey that is so unsettling, into the outer reaches of Alaskan civilisation, it’s a story of small town superstition, malevolent forces and one man’s journey to unlock the mysterious disappearance of his twin brother. Malfi has created an engaging and suspenseful story that will creep you out. The setting is in an Alaskan mining town of Dread’s Hand in search of a missing man. It’s a town where locals will look on any stranger with distrust. Where children wear masks made of animal fur and stare at you through the masks’ ragged eye holes. And a town where death might be the only escape. Out of the blue a reclusive town local, Joe Mallory, hands himself into the police claiming to have murdered eight people. The police don’t believe him, but dig anyway, after the discovery of the bodies the story becomes international news. The last text that Paul Gallo received from his brother was that he was in Dread’s Hand, the area where the bodies were found. He is determined to find out if his brother Danny is one of the victims. He goes to Alaska to meet with the officer in charge, Jill Ryerson. He also meets a journalist who tells him stories of the strange goings-on in the area. Is there something or someone evil there?
And why do a lot of people seem to fear Paul when he shows pictures of his twin brother asking them if they have seen him and tells them that he looks exactly like him and why one lady actually calls him a monster?
I will definitely be reading more books by Ralph Malfi. I love to find a book that scares me and this one just did that. This town is so creepy and spooky.
I want to thank Netgalley, the publisher and Ronald Malfi for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
July 28, 2017
In the cold town of Dread's Hand, Alaska, Paul Gallo arrives in search of his missing twin brother. He will never be the same again.
“You didn’t arrive in Dread’s Hand, he realized, but rather Dread’s Hand came at you piecemeal, a bit of itself at a time, like someone reluctant to make your acquaintance..."
I'm not going to rehash the plot, as the synopsis and several other reviews already do that. I can only tell you how it made me feel. Uneasy. Jumpy. Disconcerted. All these things and more.
Ronald Malfi's writing keeps getting better and better. It seemed to me that in this book, the writing disappeared altogether, and the story was directly injected into my brain. Isn't that the best writing of all?
Bone White is that feeling you get when you glimpse something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn there's nothing there. Combine that feeling with the cold isolation and cold people of a small closely-knit, Alaskan town. One that's hiding a secret. Don't expect long drawn out explanations here. Instead, expect crosses, headless bodies and dark shadows.
This is the second book I've read this month which will undoubtedly make my best books of the year list. You should read it, so that you can add it to yours.
Highly recommended!
*Thanks so much to NetGalley and to Kensington for the e-ARC of this phenomenal book, in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*
“You didn’t arrive in Dread’s Hand, he realized, but rather Dread’s Hand came at you piecemeal, a bit of itself at a time, like someone reluctant to make your acquaintance..."
I'm not going to rehash the plot, as the synopsis and several other reviews already do that. I can only tell you how it made me feel. Uneasy. Jumpy. Disconcerted. All these things and more.
Ronald Malfi's writing keeps getting better and better. It seemed to me that in this book, the writing disappeared altogether, and the story was directly injected into my brain. Isn't that the best writing of all?
Bone White is that feeling you get when you glimpse something out of the corner of your eye, but when you turn there's nothing there. Combine that feeling with the cold isolation and cold people of a small closely-knit, Alaskan town. One that's hiding a secret. Don't expect long drawn out explanations here. Instead, expect crosses, headless bodies and dark shadows.
This is the second book I've read this month which will undoubtedly make my best books of the year list. You should read it, so that you can add it to yours.
Highly recommended!
*Thanks so much to NetGalley and to Kensington for the e-ARC of this phenomenal book, in exchange for my honest review. This is it.*
March 5, 2021
4.5 Stars ⭐️
Well that was creepy
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Well that was creepy
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
June 16, 2024
Bone White is yet another thrilling and creepily atmospheric novel from author Ronald Malfi.
When Paul Gallo finds out there has been a mass murder in Dreads Head, Alaska - the same place his wayward twin brother, Danny, went missing a year ago - he decides to travel to the secluded town in the hopes of finding out just exactly happened to his brother and finally obtaining closure for his tremendous and unresolved grief.
Upon his arrival, it is made very clear to Paul he is not welcome when no one will answer any of his questions - whether they know or not - no matter much how much he implores.
After finding out the mass murderer has turned himself in, Paul is eager to get some answers about Danny from him - all to no avail. The suspect will only tell him that it is better not to know why he felt compelled to slaughter so many people.
When at last, Paul's singleminded determination leads him to a person who gives him the answers he has been seeking, the explanations he is given are just too mind-bending and difficult for him to accept as truth - and this may be his biggest mistake of all...
Narrator Charles Constant delivered a wonderful telling of this eerie and bone-chilling horror story. Kudos.
Highly recommend.
When Paul Gallo finds out there has been a mass murder in Dreads Head, Alaska - the same place his wayward twin brother, Danny, went missing a year ago - he decides to travel to the secluded town in the hopes of finding out just exactly happened to his brother and finally obtaining closure for his tremendous and unresolved grief.
Upon his arrival, it is made very clear to Paul he is not welcome when no one will answer any of his questions - whether they know or not - no matter much how much he implores.
After finding out the mass murderer has turned himself in, Paul is eager to get some answers about Danny from him - all to no avail. The suspect will only tell him that it is better not to know why he felt compelled to slaughter so many people.
When at last, Paul's singleminded determination leads him to a person who gives him the answers he has been seeking, the explanations he is given are just too mind-bending and difficult for him to accept as truth - and this may be his biggest mistake of all...
Narrator Charles Constant delivered a wonderful telling of this eerie and bone-chilling horror story. Kudos.
Highly recommend.
January 19, 2022
5 STARS!
You guys, I really love the writing of Ronald Malfi!
This is the second book that I’ve read of his and it’s also a winner. The writing is atmospheric, descriptive and the book just flows so well. The chapters and book flies by while I get sucked into the plot and characters.
What the hell is going on in Dread's Hand and do I really want to know? Eek!!
Bone White was no exception on this formula. I was sucked in from the beginning with the relationship of Danny and Paul Gallo, along with the lengths that Paul would do to find his twin brother.
The whole atmosphere of Dread's Hand along with how isolated the town was from civilization just gives you the creeps. All the crosses in the town to what the police find in Mallory’s house makes this book super creepy.
Have I mentioned the word creepy yet? Hahaha
The town folk of Dread's Hand just gives you a bad feeling. I was waiting for some sort of back woods sacrifice with a burning man with the way things were going with Paul and the locals by the middle of the book.
The ongoing investigation of Joseph Mallory was well done. The mystery of who he was, what he was up to and whether Danny was one of his victims made Bone White more suspenseful and engaging.
Bone White was more then just a horror book. The mystery behind Danny's disappearance and how it affected Paul gave this book life and feeling.
The sense of dread with each revelation that Paul Gallo and Detective Jill Ryerson find out about in the book just keeps building and building until...WHAM!
Recommended to horror and mystery fans! I think you'll love the creepy atmosphere of an old mining town in Alaska.
The cold, lack of light and snow gives this book another layer of isolation that I just loved!
Now where is the night light, my blanket and a crucifix?!
You guys, I really love the writing of Ronald Malfi!
This is the second book that I’ve read of his and it’s also a winner. The writing is atmospheric, descriptive and the book just flows so well. The chapters and book flies by while I get sucked into the plot and characters.
What the hell is going on in Dread's Hand and do I really want to know? Eek!!
Bone White was no exception on this formula. I was sucked in from the beginning with the relationship of Danny and Paul Gallo, along with the lengths that Paul would do to find his twin brother.
The whole atmosphere of Dread's Hand along with how isolated the town was from civilization just gives you the creeps. All the crosses in the town to what the police find in Mallory’s house makes this book super creepy.
Have I mentioned the word creepy yet? Hahaha
The town folk of Dread's Hand just gives you a bad feeling. I was waiting for some sort of back woods sacrifice with a burning man with the way things were going with Paul and the locals by the middle of the book.
The ongoing investigation of Joseph Mallory was well done. The mystery of who he was, what he was up to and whether Danny was one of his victims made Bone White more suspenseful and engaging.
Bone White was more then just a horror book. The mystery behind Danny's disappearance and how it affected Paul gave this book life and feeling.
The sense of dread with each revelation that Paul Gallo and Detective Jill Ryerson find out about in the book just keeps building and building until...WHAM!
Recommended to horror and mystery fans! I think you'll love the creepy atmosphere of an old mining town in Alaska.
The cold, lack of light and snow gives this book another layer of isolation that I just loved!
Now where is the night light, my blanket and a crucifix?!
January 6, 2022
First, the dude was a serial killer. Not mass murderer. What they found was a mass grave site. If you are going to write crimes in your books, get it correct. It is a pet peeve of mine. However, is it really fair to slap a label on him because technically the victims were not victims nor human. Any way you slice it, Dread’s Hand, Alaska is a place to avoid. The locals are unfriendly, the one-room hotel owner's father is stabby, and there is something inhuman stalking people in the snow.
My new year started with a 5-star read. Woo-hoo!! Whelp can't top that. I'm done. See you all next year 😂 This book was creepy. It sucked me in from the beginning and didn't let go until the end. Recommend!!
My new year started with a 5-star read. Woo-hoo!! Whelp can't top that. I'm done. See you all next year 😂 This book was creepy. It sucked me in from the beginning and didn't let go until the end. Recommend!!
October 30, 2018
I have a confession to make.....
I am a huge Ronald Malfi fan.
This is my 7th book by him and he has yet to disappoint me. I can safely say that he is definitely one of my favorite authors.
When Paul Gallo sees on the news a story of a mass killing in Dreads Hand, Alaska it catches his attention. His twin brother, Danny, disappeared from Dreads Hand a year before and has never been seen since. Paul decides to fly out to Alaska to find out if his brother is one of the victims.
"And the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world."
Everything about Dreads Hand is creepy. From the forbidding terrain and weather, to the bizarre urban myth of the devil haunting the woods, to the crosses that line the only road into the town, to the standoffish locals that all seem to be hiding something, to the children that roam the streets while in animal masks.
"You Should Not Be Here"
What I'm saying is that Ronald Malfi spins quite the creepy tale here. Chapter 30 was so damn chilling that I may not ever forget it.
Do yourself a favor and check out this guys work! 5 stars!
I am a huge Ronald Malfi fan.
This is my 7th book by him and he has yet to disappoint me. I can safely say that he is definitely one of my favorite authors.
When Paul Gallo sees on the news a story of a mass killing in Dreads Hand, Alaska it catches his attention. His twin brother, Danny, disappeared from Dreads Hand a year before and has never been seen since. Paul decides to fly out to Alaska to find out if his brother is one of the victims.
"And the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world."
Everything about Dreads Hand is creepy. From the forbidding terrain and weather, to the bizarre urban myth of the devil haunting the woods, to the crosses that line the only road into the town, to the standoffish locals that all seem to be hiding something, to the children that roam the streets while in animal masks.
"You Should Not Be Here"
What I'm saying is that Ronald Malfi spins quite the creepy tale here. Chapter 30 was so damn chilling that I may not ever forget it.
Do yourself a favor and check out this guys work! 5 stars!
October 12, 2022
Predator's eyes........Nightmare fuel.
"You should not be here" etched in the haze of the cracked mirror.
There is something that draws us to the darkest corner of the room. The magnetic pull of crouching low to check the shadows under the bed. A hand that turns the knob of the closet door for one last look.
Paul Gallo's back leans against the wall of indecision. His brother, Danny, has been missing for almost a year in the frozen, treacherous land near Dread's Hand, Alaska. A quickly snapped selfie sent by Danny along the roadside is the last link he has with his twin brother.
Danny's unreliable nature and penchant for booze and drugs make Paul think that his brother has ended up in bad company. But a year without contact brings Paul to admit that Danny is more than just missing.....that and the fact that his vehicle was found abandoned on the road leading to Dread's Hand.
Ronald Malfi creates a black, bottomless vortex in which we, the readers, cling to the jutting sides alongside Paul as he arrives in Dread's Hand. Days before, Joe Mallory, one of the town's oldest citizens, admits to murdering eight individuals and burying their bodies on his land. He sits on a bench outside of the church waiting to be arrested. Yes, sir. No, sir. Polite as can be.
Deputy Jill Ryerson meets with Paul when he arrives. Could Danny's body be among the eight victims at the recent crime scene? And what's with the crudely made crosses pounded into the ground that wrap around the property? Eventually, Jill will come to find that not all questions have real and definitive answers. Oh, not today. Not ever.
Bone White has enough booga booga in it to force you to reach for the ol' night light, folks. This one has some stellar writing and solid descriptives of time and place in the deep, deep woods of an Alaskan wilderness. Malfi has you squinting your eyes and fine-tuning those ears for mere sounds of man or beast.
A sincerely good read that keeps the creep, front and center, in the creepy.
"You should not be here" etched in the haze of the cracked mirror.
There is something that draws us to the darkest corner of the room. The magnetic pull of crouching low to check the shadows under the bed. A hand that turns the knob of the closet door for one last look.
Paul Gallo's back leans against the wall of indecision. His brother, Danny, has been missing for almost a year in the frozen, treacherous land near Dread's Hand, Alaska. A quickly snapped selfie sent by Danny along the roadside is the last link he has with his twin brother.
Danny's unreliable nature and penchant for booze and drugs make Paul think that his brother has ended up in bad company. But a year without contact brings Paul to admit that Danny is more than just missing.....that and the fact that his vehicle was found abandoned on the road leading to Dread's Hand.
Ronald Malfi creates a black, bottomless vortex in which we, the readers, cling to the jutting sides alongside Paul as he arrives in Dread's Hand. Days before, Joe Mallory, one of the town's oldest citizens, admits to murdering eight individuals and burying their bodies on his land. He sits on a bench outside of the church waiting to be arrested. Yes, sir. No, sir. Polite as can be.
Deputy Jill Ryerson meets with Paul when he arrives. Could Danny's body be among the eight victims at the recent crime scene? And what's with the crudely made crosses pounded into the ground that wrap around the property? Eventually, Jill will come to find that not all questions have real and definitive answers. Oh, not today. Not ever.
Bone White has enough booga booga in it to force you to reach for the ol' night light, folks. This one has some stellar writing and solid descriptives of time and place in the deep, deep woods of an Alaskan wilderness. Malfi has you squinting your eyes and fine-tuning those ears for mere sounds of man or beast.
A sincerely good read that keeps the creep, front and center, in the creepy.
June 2, 2025
Easily one of the best Horror novels I've ever read and considering it's my favorite genre, that's really saying something!
I absolutely freaking loved this reading experience so, so much!!!
Adding to the Favorites shelf.
Original:
Book #12 for my TBR-Haul Project!!!
I received this book as a Christmas gift back in December of 2018, because my significant other knows me so well...
...and then I never picked it up. I love Ronald Malfi. I've heard nothing but exceptional things about this book. Why has it taken me so long!?
Anyway, we're not dwelling. That's what this project is all about. I'm so stoked to finally be getting to this tale of horror!
I absolutely freaking loved this reading experience so, so much!!!
Adding to the Favorites shelf.
Original:
Book #12 for my TBR-Haul Project!!!
I received this book as a Christmas gift back in December of 2018, because my significant other knows me so well...
...and then I never picked it up. I love Ronald Malfi. I've heard nothing but exceptional things about this book. Why has it taken me so long!?
Anyway, we're not dwelling. That's what this project is all about. I'm so stoked to finally be getting to this tale of horror!
January 22, 2019
Great creation of the back end of nowhere and the brutal conditions that you find there permeate this tale of twin brothers who have lost touch with each other. Paul, the good brother, and Danny, the reprobate, haven't seen each other for a year after Danny went on an adventure in Alaska. Alaska is a place where people frequently go missing for good. The highest rate of disappearance is the state's dubious distinction. These lost men, women and children never even turn up dead, they just vanish.
Paul goes looking for his brother after he hears of a serial killer who operated out of the derelict town of Dread's Hand, which is the last place Danny sent him a selfie from. The Alaskan police had found Danny's rental car next to Dread's Hand when he first went missing there, but no other trace was found. The town's people are a dour, silent bunch who don't take kindly to strangers and deny ever seeing Danny and continually tell Paul to leave.
This is a nice little horror story with a surprising twist at the end and a dollop of redemption.
Paul goes looking for his brother after he hears of a serial killer who operated out of the derelict town of Dread's Hand, which is the last place Danny sent him a selfie from. The Alaskan police had found Danny's rental car next to Dread's Hand when he first went missing there, but no other trace was found. The town's people are a dour, silent bunch who don't take kindly to strangers and deny ever seeing Danny and continually tell Paul to leave.
This is a nice little horror story with a surprising twist at the end and a dollop of redemption.
July 6, 2024
Paul's brother Danny is missing. A creepy guy confesses to having murdered 8 person near Dread's Hand a remote little mining village in Alaska. Was Danny among the murdered? He's still missing so Paul Gallo is trying to find out what might have happened to him. The village is quite uncanny. What about the white crosses and the dark gossip about evil at home in the woods? What about the possessed boy? The book had its stellar moments with passages reminding me on The Exorcist or an Adam Nevill novel (e.g. The Ritual). The characters were a bit too one dimensional though, it dragged at parts and you could have made much more out of that sinister material. Even the end was a bit too unspectacular for my liking. What remains is some quite scary moments. Recommended!
December 25, 2021
I was born in Anchorage, Alaska.
I've been away for decades. As a woman, I'd never go back. Too many hairy men.
This story was all kinds of messed up!
I've been away for decades. As a woman, I'd never go back. Too many hairy men.
This story was all kinds of messed up!
December 9, 2019
Bone White is flawless, ticking all the boxes and leaving the reader with a complete, blissed-out horror fiction hangover. A murder mystery thriller bundled with straight-up 'leave the lights on when you read' terror. This one has teeth.
The set-up reminds me of an X-Files episode: A small, cozy well-lit diner nestled in a frozen landscape is alive with a handful of locals eating comfort food and each other’s company. The door opens. Everyone looks at the newcomer--he’s scraggly and barely recognizable but familiarity registers on the faces of some of the old-timers, they know this man but it’s been a while. They ask him if he’s been up in those woods.
They also ask him if that’s blood all over his clothes. He responds with, “Well, they’re up there. The whole lot of them. They’re all dead, and I killed ‘em. But I’m done now and that’s that.”
Cue the spooky X-Files into music.
This is the very beginning of chapter 1 and Malfi maintains this pace for the duration of the book. There is never a dull moment. This is an immersive storyline. Malfi spends quality time developing the characters and building out the story but he also spends equal time on the setting--an aspect of storytelling I often find seriously lacking in the horror genre. Some authors get so absorbed in dialog or describing carnage, they forget the foundational value of creating a place for the reader to live--for BONE WHITE, it’s a rural town named Dread’s Hand somewhere in a wooded area of Alaska. The frozen, isolated landscape adds a layer of danger and creepiness before the story gets even darker.
Let it be said, I feel like I arrived really late to this party. This book has been recommended to me at least a hundred times over the last four or five years. I bought it for myself as a Christmas present like three years ago. In the meantime, I have become a Malfi fan by reading some of his other work, the novel DECEMBER PARK and his short story collection WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE--both of which were five star reads for me.
BONE WHITE suffered that same fate so many other highly anticipated, older titles do-lingering on my shelves. Neglected, but not forgotten. After finishing, I experienced the classic booknerd emotion, “WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG?!”
This book is perfect for right now. Wintertime. Also, treat yourself to imagining the main protagonist, Paul Gallo as David Harbor in his Stranger Things role as Hopper because Gallo has the same natural bravery and “throw caution to the wind” attitude. There were so many times where Paul decides to go investigate a situation in the middle of nowhere and I was like, “Who does this??” But Gallo’s drive for answers and his love for his missing brother provided all the drive he needed, clearly. Also, perfect fuel for a horror novel, right? Give the protagonist enough motivation to find himself in the worst, precarious situations and anything can happen. There were some seriously creepy moments in this book. Especially the last 50 pages. I could gladly read that ending again and again--one of my favorite climactic scenes ever.
At this point, Malfi can do no wrong for me. Everything I have read is five star worthy.
The set-up reminds me of an X-Files episode: A small, cozy well-lit diner nestled in a frozen landscape is alive with a handful of locals eating comfort food and each other’s company. The door opens. Everyone looks at the newcomer--he’s scraggly and barely recognizable but familiarity registers on the faces of some of the old-timers, they know this man but it’s been a while. They ask him if he’s been up in those woods.
They also ask him if that’s blood all over his clothes. He responds with, “Well, they’re up there. The whole lot of them. They’re all dead, and I killed ‘em. But I’m done now and that’s that.”
Cue the spooky X-Files into music.
This is the very beginning of chapter 1 and Malfi maintains this pace for the duration of the book. There is never a dull moment. This is an immersive storyline. Malfi spends quality time developing the characters and building out the story but he also spends equal time on the setting--an aspect of storytelling I often find seriously lacking in the horror genre. Some authors get so absorbed in dialog or describing carnage, they forget the foundational value of creating a place for the reader to live--for BONE WHITE, it’s a rural town named Dread’s Hand somewhere in a wooded area of Alaska. The frozen, isolated landscape adds a layer of danger and creepiness before the story gets even darker.
Let it be said, I feel like I arrived really late to this party. This book has been recommended to me at least a hundred times over the last four or five years. I bought it for myself as a Christmas present like three years ago. In the meantime, I have become a Malfi fan by reading some of his other work, the novel DECEMBER PARK and his short story collection WE SHOULD HAVE LEFT WELL ENOUGH ALONE--both of which were five star reads for me.
BONE WHITE suffered that same fate so many other highly anticipated, older titles do-lingering on my shelves. Neglected, but not forgotten. After finishing, I experienced the classic booknerd emotion, “WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG?!”
This book is perfect for right now. Wintertime. Also, treat yourself to imagining the main protagonist, Paul Gallo as David Harbor in his Stranger Things role as Hopper because Gallo has the same natural bravery and “throw caution to the wind” attitude. There were so many times where Paul decides to go investigate a situation in the middle of nowhere and I was like, “Who does this??” But Gallo’s drive for answers and his love for his missing brother provided all the drive he needed, clearly. Also, perfect fuel for a horror novel, right? Give the protagonist enough motivation to find himself in the worst, precarious situations and anything can happen. There were some seriously creepy moments in this book. Especially the last 50 pages. I could gladly read that ending again and again--one of my favorite climactic scenes ever.
At this point, Malfi can do no wrong for me. Everything I have read is five star worthy.
July 9, 2018
There is something evil afoot in the woods that lie on the outskirts of Dread's Hand, Alaska. It churns in the pools of darkness, slithers in the treetops, and it watches. Staked crosses reach up out of the mist like fingers, skeletal and bone white. Nothing good comes out of those woods, something in there sours the soul and rots away at the mind. When are we going to learn to steer clear of the woods? When?
Well-written and finely plotted. The scare factor wasn't as high as I would have liked, it seemed more of a mystery than horror. Still and yet, there is no denying the feeling of dread that permeated, and the atmosphere of The Hand almost came across as a living, breathing entity.
Well-written and finely plotted. The scare factor wasn't as high as I would have liked, it seemed more of a mystery than horror. Still and yet, there is no denying the feeling of dread that permeated, and the atmosphere of The Hand almost came across as a living, breathing entity.
March 26, 2025
"I’m gonna level with you. Folks out here are superstitious. Look around you. Our winters are black, and in the summer it’s just one long stretch of perpetual daylight. People around here don’t have much. They drink and they hunt and they sit around telling ghost stories."
4.25 ⭐'s
Initial Thoughts
I got to be straight with you guys, I've never read a Ronald Malfi book before in my life. Or any life, if you believe in that kind of thing. And yet I still call myself a horror fan?
Don't get me wrong, I have heard of him before and he's always been on my radar. I'm not that out of touch with the modern state of the genre. So when a group read came up with the Horror or Heaven Goodreads group, I was drooling with anticipation at the chance to finally give this author a go. Good things come to those that wait. At least that's what I was hoping.
I've heard a lot of people describe Malfi as the new Stephen King. But which modern horror author hasn't had that tag? Please let me know. But if it means he's delivering well written, character driven suspense then I'm all over it. And let's face it, with King currently obsessesed with solely writing stories featuring Holly Gibney, we're in desperate need of someone in the genre who fits his mold.
Let's see if I found him...
The Story
Bone White starts with a creepy/brilliant scene in a small, Alaskan town called Dreads Hand. It's an apt name, being a town steeped in violence. And that's before local man Joseph Mallory walks into a diner looking bedragled, muttering to himself and covered in blood. And guess what? It's not his blood!
He saddles up next to one of the customers and begins to confess that he's been on a little bit of a killing spree, murdering eight people up in dem der mountains and burying the bodies around his cabin. He then announces that he'll be waiting for the police outside the local church, to give himself up, and quickly vacates.
The news report on national TV catches the attention of Paul Gallo, who's brother went missing over a year ago. And their last contact was a text including a photo taken in, you're not going to believe this, Dreads Hand.
Convinced his brother was one of Mallory's victims, Paul goes to the small town to try and investigate. Maybe getting to the bottom of this will find him the closure he's looking for. But none of the locals are exactly trying to help and aren't going to make things easy for him.
So begins the start of this fantastic supernatural mystery.
The Writing
I've been on the lookout for a new horror author who can write. And you know what? Malfi can write. That's right! He doesn't need to rely on shock and gore, instead using some quality, descriptive prose to slowly build the tension. His clever use of language has burned some vividly disturbing images into my mind that I'm now struggling to get rid of. But it never gets too clever and it's an easy read that drew me in.
Yes, even though Bone White is a pretty short book, I'd still describe this as a slow-burn. It's never dull, but Malfi is in no rush to hit you with the horror, so when he does it's even more effective. I love these type of books when it's done well and this one is. There's a constant sense of unease that permeates it deeply and I just couldn't shake that impending sense of doom.
And I can't finish without mentioning how Malfi draws the location of the eerie and isolated town of Dreads Hand. Oh it's good! Almost a character in its own right. It brought back memories of the movie 30 Days of Night that was also set in Alaska. I could vividly see the environment as it became a living, breathing entity that added a real flavor to proceedings.
The Characters
I've heard a few say that if you enjoy King then you'll like Ronald Malfi and I can definitely see why. His characters are fleshed out and believable, having their own flaws that make them human and relatable. Paul Gallo is consumed with a loss that controls his life.
I'd definitely say his stories are character driven, as Malfi looks to establish them fully before progressing with the plot. Paul was such a well-drawn character that I really related to him at points and could clearly see him as a real person. I could almost feel his grief at the loss of his brother. Which is very Stephen King-like. But, I've only got this one book to go off, so don't quote me,
Paul may be the main character, but he's certainly not the only one and there's a host of others that add depth to the novel. Jill Ryerson is a cop who's investigating the murders and was a very intriguing character that I honestly wanted more of. Being a cop myself, I found it fascinating how she approached the events taking place and her resolve to do the right thing. And also, her dislike of dogs. Yes you can still be a good person while not loving dogs.
Final Thoughts
Well looks like I've found a new horror author to dive into this year. I did enjoy Bone White quite a bit and was tempted to give it five stars. I loved it from start to finish. But I have to keep a bit of perspective and not let myself get carried away in the excitement. Like the time my friend prank called me pretending to be Megan Fox. While it's good, in fact it's very good, it's not quite a masterpiece. But it has left me thirsty for more from this author and I'm already scanning his bibliography deciding what to read next and there looks to be some good ones.
So this is my first book from Ronald Malfi, but will definitely not be my last, and I can see myself becoming a huge fan of his. That's if his other books are up to the same standard as this. I've got to say, I'm a little bit excited to have found this author. Malfi is a talent that excites me, and I plan to continue wading my way through his back catalogue. So let me know if you have any recommendations for me.
Thanks for reading and...cheers!
December 23, 2024
Atmospheric, chilling, mysterious, imaginative,and creepy! Ronald Malfi continues to dazzle me with his chilling and gripping books! Bone White takes place in Dread's Hand, Alaska. How about that as a town name! It evokes dread and eeriness with that name alone. Malfi nailed the feeling of unease, dread, and had the hairs standing up on the back of my neck and I enjoyed every second of it!
Paul Gallo has arrived in Dread's Hand to search for his twin brother, Danny, who went missing a year ago. He is looking for answers, closure and to be able grieve. What he finds is creepy and suspicious locals with strange tales...
I had no idea where this book was headed but I enjoyed the creepy and atmospheric ride Malfi took me on. I loved the tension, the mystery, the unease, the atmosphere, and the vivid descriptions.
Atmospheric, wonderfully written, well thought out, and gripping! Malfi always delivers and has quickly risen to the top of my favorite horror writer(s) list.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖
Paul Gallo has arrived in Dread's Hand to search for his twin brother, Danny, who went missing a year ago. He is looking for answers, closure and to be able grieve. What he finds is creepy and suspicious locals with strange tales...
I had no idea where this book was headed but I enjoyed the creepy and atmospheric ride Malfi took me on. I loved the tension, the mystery, the unease, the atmosphere, and the vivid descriptions.
Atmospheric, wonderfully written, well thought out, and gripping! Malfi always delivers and has quickly risen to the top of my favorite horror writer(s) list.
Read more of my reviews at www.openbookposts.com 📖
September 29, 2024
Up is Down. Down is Up.
And Bigfoot is Searching For Me Now...
BONE WHITE
by Ronald Malfi
No spoilers. 3 stars. In 1912, the little mining town of Dread's Hand in Alaska vanished from the face of the Earth...
There one day, gone the next...
In 1916, the mine collapsed, killing 26 people. In 1946, US soldiers camping in the woods of the Hand saw strange lights in the sky...
They were snowed in that winter and saw something watching them from the woods...
Like the legend of the Wendigo...
In the 1960s, many people living in or near Dread's Hand went missing...
In the 1980s, a man named Silka wandered the highway near Manley Hot Springs and Dread's Hand looking for odd jobs...
Silka killed 9 people, and the guy had gone bone white and had the devil in him...
There are huge crosses lining the road just before you get into Dread's Hand. Some look very old and appear to be arranged to be seen and understood from the sky...
Up is down and down is up, and Bigfoot is searching for me now. What does all this mean? I still couldn't tell you! My headline and the synopsis following... none of it was ever addressed or explained...
My review explains my three star rating. I removed one star for the annoying overuse of the word "campaign," which was used to describe someone trudging or trooping through the woods and snow.
Another star removed for many, many unexplained or loose ends. After reading 400+ pages of repetition, you would think the author might reserve some of those pages to explain a few things.
BTW, the last 20% of the story was sooooo boring that it took me two days to finish it.
And Bigfoot is Searching For Me Now...
BONE WHITE
by Ronald Malfi
No spoilers. 3 stars. In 1912, the little mining town of Dread's Hand in Alaska vanished from the face of the Earth...
There one day, gone the next...
In 1916, the mine collapsed, killing 26 people. In 1946, US soldiers camping in the woods of the Hand saw strange lights in the sky...
They were snowed in that winter and saw something watching them from the woods...
Like the legend of the Wendigo...
In the 1960s, many people living in or near Dread's Hand went missing...
In the 1980s, a man named Silka wandered the highway near Manley Hot Springs and Dread's Hand looking for odd jobs...
Silka killed 9 people, and the guy had gone bone white and had the devil in him...
There are huge crosses lining the road just before you get into Dread's Hand. Some look very old and appear to be arranged to be seen and understood from the sky...
Up is down and down is up, and Bigfoot is searching for me now. What does all this mean? I still couldn't tell you! My headline and the synopsis following... none of it was ever addressed or explained...
My review explains my three star rating. I removed one star for the annoying overuse of the word "campaign," which was used to describe someone trudging or trooping through the woods and snow.
Another star removed for many, many unexplained or loose ends. After reading 400+ pages of repetition, you would think the author might reserve some of those pages to explain a few things.
BTW, the last 20% of the story was sooooo boring that it took me two days to finish it.
August 9, 2017
This is one dark, creepy, read under the covers scary book!
Set in the cold, desolate parts of Alaska, there is a tiny old mining town called Dread's Head. So small and isolated that it doesn't even appear on most maps. This is not a place people go to visit. There have been whispers about evil in the surrounding woods of Dread's Head throughout the years. People have disappeared, families murdering their own. Some say it's because Bone White (the devil) got them.
The stage is set, then comes the mystery:
Paul Gallo's twin brother Danny was last seen just outside the town a year ago and hasn't been heard from since. When the news reports of a killer who admits to murdering and burying 8 people in the mountains, he heads out to find out if his brother is one of them.
Right away you just know something is not right in this town. Malfi does a great job of creating tension and keeping the reader off kilter. Children wearing animal masks, townsfolk hiding in corners, afraid to come out. And that is the the big question throughout...Just what is everyone afraid of?
Paul decides it's time to get some answers to what happened to his brother, so he heads into the dark mountains at the exact same spot he was last seen. Just when I thought the creep factor couldn't get any higher, it is here that things really explode.
If you like good old fashioned campfire stories that will keep you up at night, you need to get your hands on this book. The premise might not be new, but it's told incredibly well and has certainly haunted me even after I read the last words.
This is my first read by Malfi, so I have a lot of catching up to do! If anyone has a favorite that I should read next, please share!
ARC provided by NetGalley
Set in the cold, desolate parts of Alaska, there is a tiny old mining town called Dread's Head. So small and isolated that it doesn't even appear on most maps. This is not a place people go to visit. There have been whispers about evil in the surrounding woods of Dread's Head throughout the years. People have disappeared, families murdering their own. Some say it's because Bone White (the devil) got them.
The stage is set, then comes the mystery:
Paul Gallo's twin brother Danny was last seen just outside the town a year ago and hasn't been heard from since. When the news reports of a killer who admits to murdering and burying 8 people in the mountains, he heads out to find out if his brother is one of them.
Right away you just know something is not right in this town. Malfi does a great job of creating tension and keeping the reader off kilter. Children wearing animal masks, townsfolk hiding in corners, afraid to come out. And that is the the big question throughout...Just what is everyone afraid of?
Paul decides it's time to get some answers to what happened to his brother, so he heads into the dark mountains at the exact same spot he was last seen. Just when I thought the creep factor couldn't get any higher, it is here that things really explode.
If you like good old fashioned campfire stories that will keep you up at night, you need to get your hands on this book. The premise might not be new, but it's told incredibly well and has certainly haunted me even after I read the last words.
This is my first read by Malfi, so I have a lot of catching up to do! If anyone has a favorite that I should read next, please share!
ARC provided by NetGalley
January 10, 2024
4.5 stars rounded up
“Something wicked this way comes” Macbeth
“Local Man admits to murder of Unknown Victims in a remote Alaskan town” screams the US TV headlines. A dishevelled Joe Mallory wearing a suspiciously dark stained coat walks into Tabby White’s luncheonette which is astonishing in itself, as he hasn’t been seen for several years. Tabby is shaken to her core by what he tells all in the diner. Jill Ryerson of Major Crimes is duly summoned to the old mining town of Dread’s Hand and the search for bodies begins. Is one of the victims Paul Gallo’s twin brother, Danny? Paul travels to Alaska hoping for closure but finds himself embroiled in the mystery. Brace yourselves folks, buckle up and strap yourself in as this is Ronald Malfi at his horrifying best.
I think it’s fair to describe this author as the master of the creepy. The Alaskan location in and around Dread’s Hand is inspired, I mean, that name alone is enough to give you the heebies. Let’s add in folktales, legends and superstitions such as Bone-Walkers and if you are described as ‘white’ or ‘bone white’, the devil is inside you and evil personified. The location has an air that probably exists in ghost mining towns and this one gives Jill and Paul a real sense of claustrophobia, it feels disconcerting from the start, it’s cold, it’s winter, it’s dark and that matches the dark presences. This affects both of them although in different ways, exuding an atmosphere that enhances the horrifying, gruesome, hellish discoveries. It becomes beyond chilling, creepy and spooky and is deeply disturbing with locals that seem to fit right in, well, you’d skedaddle otherwise, wouldn’t you??
It’s extremely well written with dark imagery that springs up before your eyes and it’s tightly plotted so you just go with the evil flow. There’s a clever hallucinatory quality to the writing and so like Paul, you have no clue what’s real. It builds with a rising sense of dread and becomes one of those reads where you want to check under the bed, then hide under the covers and definitely leave the light on to illuminate those dark shadowy corners.
This is not just bone white, it’s bone chilling. I wonder what it says about me that I love it! It’s a really good dark, cold, January read in the UK. If you are a fan of horror then this book is one for you.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Canelo for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
“Something wicked this way comes” Macbeth
“Local Man admits to murder of Unknown Victims in a remote Alaskan town” screams the US TV headlines. A dishevelled Joe Mallory wearing a suspiciously dark stained coat walks into Tabby White’s luncheonette which is astonishing in itself, as he hasn’t been seen for several years. Tabby is shaken to her core by what he tells all in the diner. Jill Ryerson of Major Crimes is duly summoned to the old mining town of Dread’s Hand and the search for bodies begins. Is one of the victims Paul Gallo’s twin brother, Danny? Paul travels to Alaska hoping for closure but finds himself embroiled in the mystery. Brace yourselves folks, buckle up and strap yourself in as this is Ronald Malfi at his horrifying best.
I think it’s fair to describe this author as the master of the creepy. The Alaskan location in and around Dread’s Hand is inspired, I mean, that name alone is enough to give you the heebies. Let’s add in folktales, legends and superstitions such as Bone-Walkers and if you are described as ‘white’ or ‘bone white’, the devil is inside you and evil personified. The location has an air that probably exists in ghost mining towns and this one gives Jill and Paul a real sense of claustrophobia, it feels disconcerting from the start, it’s cold, it’s winter, it’s dark and that matches the dark presences. This affects both of them although in different ways, exuding an atmosphere that enhances the horrifying, gruesome, hellish discoveries. It becomes beyond chilling, creepy and spooky and is deeply disturbing with locals that seem to fit right in, well, you’d skedaddle otherwise, wouldn’t you??
It’s extremely well written with dark imagery that springs up before your eyes and it’s tightly plotted so you just go with the evil flow. There’s a clever hallucinatory quality to the writing and so like Paul, you have no clue what’s real. It builds with a rising sense of dread and becomes one of those reads where you want to check under the bed, then hide under the covers and definitely leave the light on to illuminate those dark shadowy corners.
This is not just bone white, it’s bone chilling. I wonder what it says about me that I love it! It’s a really good dark, cold, January read in the UK. If you are a fan of horror then this book is one for you.
With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Canelo for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.
June 5, 2020
When a filthy, disheveled man walks out of the blue and into the black, sits down for breakfast at a local diner, then causally claims to have butchered eight people out in the wilderness near Dread’s Hand, Alaska, the story makes national headlines.
Nearly a year ago Paul Gallo’s twin brother, Danny, went missing in that same one-horse town. So, when word of the atrocity reaches his door, he packs a bag and catches the first flight out to Fairbanks.
The DNA evidence soon reveals that Danny is not among the victims, but Paul’s not ready to return home empty-handed after such a long journey. Instead, he decides to do a little investigating of his own and makes the short trek from Fairbanks out to the Hand. But the townsfolk he encounters are far from accommodating. In fact, they’re downright hostile to his presence and stymie his inquiries at every turn.
There’s something off about Dread’s Hand—great name by the way—wooden crosses shadow the roads, weird kids in fur-skinned masks pop up out of nowhere, cryptic warnings are carved into the walls of his motel room, but most troubling of all is the deep-seated superstition that seems to permeate throughout the town. Legend has it the woods surrounding the Hand are cursed, and if you gaze too long into those woods, they’ll gaze back into you . . .
Sometimes you don’t even realize how well a story was crafted until you’re neck-deep into your next book and slowly drowning in an overly descriptive narrative, chock-full of irrelevant details and pointless asides. That’s when you’ll look back at a story like this with such fondness, and wish your current author could cut through all the BS and get to the effing point!
That’s when you’ll appreciate a focused narrative, with nary a wasted word. There was no need for backstories on every Tom, Dick, and Harry; no attempt at shoehorning the leads into an awkward romance; no dreams or hallucinations that weren’t adding to the sense of dread or unspooling the folklore. Such as this gem:
“Eleven-year-old Danny looked at him, and Paul was terrified to find that there was a massive gash bisecting his brother’s neck, and that the blood that dribbled down from the wound had soaked the front of his bright white T-shirt. There was a bullet hole in the side of Danny’s head, too, the hair tacky with gore and small bits of skull. His brother’s face was—
(bone white)
—drained of color. And when Danny’s mouth opened, Paul saw that it was black inside, as if Danny had ingested some terrible poison that was rotting him from the inside out.
—You’re dying, Paul. You’re dying.
“That’s okay, Danny,” he said. “You’re dead, too.”
The tight plotting was a major strength that helped to keep me immersed in the story. The only real knock on the book is that the mystery was fairly straightforward, with no major twist. So, if you were paying the slightest attention to all those hints dropped along the way, you’re sure to have it solved long before the big reveal. That said, it didn’t lessen the chilling effect of the tale all that much, in my opinion.
Bottom line: If a creepy atmospheric horror—set in the frozen heart of Alaska and populated with a cast of paranoid, superstitious people—that mines the depth of the psychological connection between twins sounds like your idea of a good time, then look no further.
A big thank you to my fellow buddy readers, Carmen and Erin, who were gracious enough to read a book of my choosing. Oh and, dear old Mr. Splitfoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP9wm...
Nearly a year ago Paul Gallo’s twin brother, Danny, went missing in that same one-horse town. So, when word of the atrocity reaches his door, he packs a bag and catches the first flight out to Fairbanks.
The DNA evidence soon reveals that Danny is not among the victims, but Paul’s not ready to return home empty-handed after such a long journey. Instead, he decides to do a little investigating of his own and makes the short trek from Fairbanks out to the Hand. But the townsfolk he encounters are far from accommodating. In fact, they’re downright hostile to his presence and stymie his inquiries at every turn.
There’s something off about Dread’s Hand—great name by the way—wooden crosses shadow the roads, weird kids in fur-skinned masks pop up out of nowhere, cryptic warnings are carved into the walls of his motel room, but most troubling of all is the deep-seated superstition that seems to permeate throughout the town. Legend has it the woods surrounding the Hand are cursed, and if you gaze too long into those woods, they’ll gaze back into you . . .
Sometimes you don’t even realize how well a story was crafted until you’re neck-deep into your next book and slowly drowning in an overly descriptive narrative, chock-full of irrelevant details and pointless asides. That’s when you’ll look back at a story like this with such fondness, and wish your current author could cut through all the BS and get to the effing point!
That’s when you’ll appreciate a focused narrative, with nary a wasted word. There was no need for backstories on every Tom, Dick, and Harry; no attempt at shoehorning the leads into an awkward romance; no dreams or hallucinations that weren’t adding to the sense of dread or unspooling the folklore. Such as this gem:
“Eleven-year-old Danny looked at him, and Paul was terrified to find that there was a massive gash bisecting his brother’s neck, and that the blood that dribbled down from the wound had soaked the front of his bright white T-shirt. There was a bullet hole in the side of Danny’s head, too, the hair tacky with gore and small bits of skull. His brother’s face was—
(bone white)
—drained of color. And when Danny’s mouth opened, Paul saw that it was black inside, as if Danny had ingested some terrible poison that was rotting him from the inside out.
—You’re dying, Paul. You’re dying.
“That’s okay, Danny,” he said. “You’re dead, too.”
The tight plotting was a major strength that helped to keep me immersed in the story. The only real knock on the book is that the mystery was fairly straightforward, with no major twist. So, if you were paying the slightest attention to all those hints dropped along the way, you’re sure to have it solved long before the big reveal. That said, it didn’t lessen the chilling effect of the tale all that much, in my opinion.
Bottom line: If a creepy atmospheric horror—set in the frozen heart of Alaska and populated with a cast of paranoid, superstitious people—that mines the depth of the psychological connection between twins sounds like your idea of a good time, then look no further.
A big thank you to my fellow buddy readers, Carmen and Erin, who were gracious enough to read a book of my choosing. Oh and, dear old Mr. Splitfoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP9wm...
January 8, 2023
I picked a great book to kick off 2023! There was no messing around with this book. I was sucked into the story from the very beginning and it had my full attention until the very end.
Bone White is my first read by Ronald Malfi. I picked it up on a whim simply because the synopsis looked interesting and then it sat on my shelf for a few years while other shiny objects caught my attention. What a shame!
The scene opens in the tiny Alaskan community of Dread's Hand, where a man wanders into a diner claiming to have killed and buried a number of people. He's been in the foothills for years and looks as if he could be insane. Meanwhile, Paul Gallo's twin brother, Danny, has been missing for a year. Danny's last known location was - you guessed it - Dread's Hand, Alaska. Paul travels to Alaska to investigate to see if he can uncover what happened to Danny.
And that's all the backstory I'm giving because the plot twists and turns with supernatural elements. It keeps you guessing is this actually what's happening, or is there another explanation? It's the perfect blend of a mystery-thriller and horror. And I loved every last word.
I also loved Malfi's prose. His words painted dark images of the scenes and characters in my mind, bringing it all to life like a beautiful dark folk painting. Bone White came fully alive as I read it.
I can't end this review without pointing out some of the themes you'll find within the pages. This book is rich with themes of family and responsibility; sibling love; and that age old battle of good vs evil.
Some trigger warnings to look out for: drugs and alcohol use, violence, suicide. It isn't a light read by any means. I'm left with a heavy book hangover after finishing Bone White and I'm looking forward to my next Ronald Malfi read! Any suggestions of ones you particularly enjoyed would gladly be accepted! If there's any doubt, I'm confirming that Bone White gets five icy stars out of five from this reader!
Bone White is my first read by Ronald Malfi. I picked it up on a whim simply because the synopsis looked interesting and then it sat on my shelf for a few years while other shiny objects caught my attention. What a shame!
The scene opens in the tiny Alaskan community of Dread's Hand, where a man wanders into a diner claiming to have killed and buried a number of people. He's been in the foothills for years and looks as if he could be insane. Meanwhile, Paul Gallo's twin brother, Danny, has been missing for a year. Danny's last known location was - you guessed it - Dread's Hand, Alaska. Paul travels to Alaska to investigate to see if he can uncover what happened to Danny.
And that's all the backstory I'm giving because the plot twists and turns with supernatural elements. It keeps you guessing is this actually what's happening, or is there another explanation? It's the perfect blend of a mystery-thriller and horror. And I loved every last word.
I also loved Malfi's prose. His words painted dark images of the scenes and characters in my mind, bringing it all to life like a beautiful dark folk painting. Bone White came fully alive as I read it.
I can't end this review without pointing out some of the themes you'll find within the pages. This book is rich with themes of family and responsibility; sibling love; and that age old battle of good vs evil.
Some trigger warnings to look out for: drugs and alcohol use, violence, suicide. It isn't a light read by any means. I'm left with a heavy book hangover after finishing Bone White and I'm looking forward to my next Ronald Malfi read! Any suggestions of ones you particularly enjoyed would gladly be accepted! If there's any doubt, I'm confirming that Bone White gets five icy stars out of five from this reader!
September 22, 2017
Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/
4.5 Stars
“Up is down, down is up. Bigfoot is searching for me now.”
I passed Bone White up when it was offered over on NetGalley due to having a pretty “meh” experience with Little Girls by this author. But then a bunch of my friends started reading it and loving it and giving it crazy high ratings and well, you know me . . . . .
I was 100% prepared to be the dissenting opinion and wrong-reader of this one, so imagine my surprise when I got sucked in just like everyone else.
The story here is of Paul, a man who ends up in a remote area of Alaska searching for his missing brother after seeing a story on the news about a local who showed up in town, confessed to murdering eight people and led authorities to their bodies. When it turns out Danny isn’t one of the deceased, Paul decides to try and track him down in the last town he was seen - Dread’s Hand . . . .
“Blink and you’d miss it: a town, or, rather, the memory of a town, secreted away at the end of a nameless, unpaved roadway that, in the deepening half light of an Alaskan dusk, looks like it might arc straight off the surface of the planet and out into the far reaches of the cosmos. A town where the scant few roads twist like veins and the little black-roofed houses, distanced from one another as if fearful of some contagion, look as if they’d been excreted into existence, pushed up through the crust of the earth from someplace deep underground.”
Faced with less-than-cooperative civil servants and even more uncooperative townsfolk, Paul is on his own when it comes to discovering what happened to his brother. And that’s when things really get interesting . . .
I’m well aware that I’m a weirdo, but I wouldn’t categorize this as a horror. That should probably be taken as a compliment by the author, because my brain has a twisted definition of what “horror” is and I tend to not be real impressed by the things that go bump in the night. At the same time (without giving anything away), Bone White did end up having one of the only “big reveals” that doesn’t feel super campy to me. The only other thing it could have been that would have scared the hell out of me?????
Ha! Anyway, I would file this as a mystery. The desolate location and “Deliverance-esque” locals (without the butt rape) is what provides the make-your-butthole-pucker-type-of-creepy – not some monster. I mean, have you ever watched one of those Alaska reality shows? I like being alone, but that is a waaaaaaaay different kind of alone. I can’t believe this sits at little over 100 ratings on Goodreads. With October right around the corner, I hope more people add this to their TBR. It would be perfect for a cold, Halloweeny-type read. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. Go check out what these amazing people had to say instead. They words much better than me . . .
Char
Jan
Kimberly
Bill
Michael
Melissa
Many thanks to the big liburrrrry for having this one at the ready when I had my “this is America, I want it now” moment. And look at the new thing to do there . . . .
I mean, not for me to do there. I’m perfectly fine being slothlike and obese. But other people who enjoy being around other people can do yoga on the roof. Fancy!
4.5 Stars
“Up is down, down is up. Bigfoot is searching for me now.”
I passed Bone White up when it was offered over on NetGalley due to having a pretty “meh” experience with Little Girls by this author. But then a bunch of my friends started reading it and loving it and giving it crazy high ratings and well, you know me . . . . .
I was 100% prepared to be the dissenting opinion and wrong-reader of this one, so imagine my surprise when I got sucked in just like everyone else.
The story here is of Paul, a man who ends up in a remote area of Alaska searching for his missing brother after seeing a story on the news about a local who showed up in town, confessed to murdering eight people and led authorities to their bodies. When it turns out Danny isn’t one of the deceased, Paul decides to try and track him down in the last town he was seen - Dread’s Hand . . . .
“Blink and you’d miss it: a town, or, rather, the memory of a town, secreted away at the end of a nameless, unpaved roadway that, in the deepening half light of an Alaskan dusk, looks like it might arc straight off the surface of the planet and out into the far reaches of the cosmos. A town where the scant few roads twist like veins and the little black-roofed houses, distanced from one another as if fearful of some contagion, look as if they’d been excreted into existence, pushed up through the crust of the earth from someplace deep underground.”
Faced with less-than-cooperative civil servants and even more uncooperative townsfolk, Paul is on his own when it comes to discovering what happened to his brother. And that’s when things really get interesting . . .
I’m well aware that I’m a weirdo, but I wouldn’t categorize this as a horror. That should probably be taken as a compliment by the author, because my brain has a twisted definition of what “horror” is and I tend to not be real impressed by the things that go bump in the night. At the same time (without giving anything away), Bone White did end up having one of the only “big reveals” that doesn’t feel super campy to me. The only other thing it could have been that would have scared the hell out of me?????
Ha! Anyway, I would file this as a mystery. The desolate location and “Deliverance-esque” locals (without the butt rape) is what provides the make-your-butthole-pucker-type-of-creepy – not some monster. I mean, have you ever watched one of those Alaska reality shows? I like being alone, but that is a waaaaaaaay different kind of alone. I can’t believe this sits at little over 100 ratings on Goodreads. With October right around the corner, I hope more people add this to their TBR. It would be perfect for a cold, Halloweeny-type read. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. Go check out what these amazing people had to say instead. They words much better than me . . .
Char
Jan
Kimberly
Bill
Michael
Melissa
Many thanks to the big liburrrrry for having this one at the ready when I had my “this is America, I want it now” moment. And look at the new thing to do there . . . .
I mean, not for me to do there. I’m perfectly fine being slothlike and obese. But other people who enjoy being around other people can do yoga on the roof. Fancy!
December 27, 2021
A horror that actually scared me ...
OverDrive, thank you!
OverDrive, thank you!
August 12, 2017
BONE WHITE, by Ronald Malfi is a book that I'm already certain will make it into my "top reads of the year" list. There isn't much
"NOT"
to praise about this novel!
Malfi begins with a chilling--both figuratively and literally--scene in the tiny, remote town of Dread's Hand, Alaska. A man suffering from severe frostbite and dehydration wanders into the only eating establishment, announcing that someone should call the safety officer, Val Drammell, so that he can show him the location of eight bodies he buried in the woods.
". . . patches of his clothes had grafted to open sores along his torso and thighs."
The scene then shifts to Paul Gallo, an unmarried school teacher who's twin brother, Danny, disappeared a year ago. His last known location--Dread's Hand.
After this set up, Malfi really nails the characterization of all of his main cast through various means. We have flashbacks of Paul and Danny's childhood, and the different directions each one took into adulthood. He gives us some insight into the alleged murderer, Joseph Mallory, along with the lives and superstitions of the few people who call "The Hand" their year round home. We learn about Val Drummel, and his role in the isolated, mostly wooded area.
"No locals would come out here . . . "
Paul's next step is to see the Detective of Major Crimes, Jill Ryerson, who was responsible for initiating the search for Danny a year ago--a search that ended with his abandoned rental car on the only road into Dread's Hand.
". . . Time . . . acts funny out here."
With that, Paul sets out to Dread's Hand, himself--at this point, I couldn't have put down the story if I tried.
To say that this novel was seeped in the icy, isolated atmosphere of an extremely remote and mostly shunned town, would be the understatement of the year.
". . . You look into that woods and something looks back at you. . . "
Through Malfi's writing, the reader actually walks that frigid land with the characters, hears the first-hand accounts of residents, the century-old superstitions that they believe as indisputable truths, and can practically feel the open hostility and distrust of any outsiders.
". . . she said there were bad places on earth--dark spots, like bruises--and that Dread's Hand was one of them . . . there were devils up there . . . "
BONE WHITE is the kind of book that has the power to mentally take you out of your comfort zone, and transport you into its action. No matter what you read, in the context of this story it will seem believable. This is the tale that nightmares are made of, that make you believe in demons and monsters of all kinds.
". . . A man walks in there, he stand a chance of being touched by the devil. And that man, he goes sour . . . "
I've found that with most stories, I can easily walk right back into my everyday life after reading them. After all: ". . . anyone can take one story and rationalize it until it fits with their perception of the world . . . "
This is that rare exception that permeates your mind, and refuses to leave, forcing you to keep thinking over the events you've just read, and formulating connections that you may not have consciously noted before. There are many pieces to this puzzle--some obvious, and some much more subtle--but they will all be with you in the end. A fantastic novel with the power to haunt you for a long time to come--what will you choose to believe?
". . . 'We have seen the devil and he is us!'"
Highest recommendation!
Malfi begins with a chilling--both figuratively and literally--scene in the tiny, remote town of Dread's Hand, Alaska. A man suffering from severe frostbite and dehydration wanders into the only eating establishment, announcing that someone should call the safety officer, Val Drammell, so that he can show him the location of eight bodies he buried in the woods.
". . . patches of his clothes had grafted to open sores along his torso and thighs."
The scene then shifts to Paul Gallo, an unmarried school teacher who's twin brother, Danny, disappeared a year ago. His last known location--Dread's Hand.
After this set up, Malfi really nails the characterization of all of his main cast through various means. We have flashbacks of Paul and Danny's childhood, and the different directions each one took into adulthood. He gives us some insight into the alleged murderer, Joseph Mallory, along with the lives and superstitions of the few people who call "The Hand" their year round home. We learn about Val Drummel, and his role in the isolated, mostly wooded area.
"No locals would come out here . . . "
Paul's next step is to see the Detective of Major Crimes, Jill Ryerson, who was responsible for initiating the search for Danny a year ago--a search that ended with his abandoned rental car on the only road into Dread's Hand.
". . . Time . . . acts funny out here."
With that, Paul sets out to Dread's Hand, himself--at this point, I couldn't have put down the story if I tried.
To say that this novel was seeped in the icy, isolated atmosphere of an extremely remote and mostly shunned town, would be the understatement of the year.
". . . You look into that woods and something looks back at you. . . "
Through Malfi's writing, the reader actually walks that frigid land with the characters, hears the first-hand accounts of residents, the century-old superstitions that they believe as indisputable truths, and can practically feel the open hostility and distrust of any outsiders.
". . . she said there were bad places on earth--dark spots, like bruises--and that Dread's Hand was one of them . . . there were devils up there . . . "
BONE WHITE is the kind of book that has the power to mentally take you out of your comfort zone, and transport you into its action. No matter what you read, in the context of this story it will seem believable. This is the tale that nightmares are made of, that make you believe in demons and monsters of all kinds.
". . . A man walks in there, he stand a chance of being touched by the devil. And that man, he goes sour . . . "
I've found that with most stories, I can easily walk right back into my everyday life after reading them. After all: ". . . anyone can take one story and rationalize it until it fits with their perception of the world . . . "
This is that rare exception that permeates your mind, and refuses to leave, forcing you to keep thinking over the events you've just read, and formulating connections that you may not have consciously noted before. There are many pieces to this puzzle--some obvious, and some much more subtle--but they will all be with you in the end. A fantastic novel with the power to haunt you for a long time to come--what will you choose to believe?
". . . 'We have seen the devil and he is us!'"
Highest recommendation!
November 14, 2024
Oh Mr. Malfi, how I love you!!! If you are on the fence about horror but you’re a thriller lover…. THIS IS YOUR GUY! His stories are extremely well done! Some favor King… but Ronald Malfi is the best IMO and my favorite horror author!
A disheveled homeless looking man walks into a diner in a small Alaskan town one day. He nonchalantly says he’s killed some people and buried their bodies in the mountains. THAT’S JUST IN THE FIRST CHAPTER!! Hook.line.and sinker! Just like that! 😱😱😱😱
Paul and Danny are twins. Danny is the flaky one and has been missing for a year. Last known place was in that very same town. After the media chaos is revealed about those grisly murders, Paul decides to head to Alaska in search for answers to the disappearance of his brother.
Is Danny one of the victims???
The reveal to the mystery was shocking!!! It’s not what you think. Phenomenally done! Omg, people….. please do yourself a favor and read this book! At least pick up a Malfi book and give him a try!!! You won’t regret it!
Small Town Horror and Bone White tie for my favorites!
5 GAZILLION ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A disheveled homeless looking man walks into a diner in a small Alaskan town one day. He nonchalantly says he’s killed some people and buried their bodies in the mountains. THAT’S JUST IN THE FIRST CHAPTER!! Hook.line.and sinker! Just like that! 😱😱😱😱
Paul and Danny are twins. Danny is the flaky one and has been missing for a year. Last known place was in that very same town. After the media chaos is revealed about those grisly murders, Paul decides to head to Alaska in search for answers to the disappearance of his brother.
Is Danny one of the victims???
The reveal to the mystery was shocking!!! It’s not what you think. Phenomenally done! Omg, people….. please do yourself a favor and read this book! At least pick up a Malfi book and give him a try!!! You won’t regret it!
Small Town Horror and Bone White tie for my favorites!
5 GAZILLION ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
May 8, 2022
In a diner in a small little town called Dreads Hand in Alaska, a man walks in unwashed, unshaven and looking very unkept. Sits down and orders a hot chocolate. The locals recognise the man as Joe Mallory. A local man who hasn't been seen in a long time. While drinking his hot chocolate he asks the owner to call the authorities and meet him outside the local church. He says he has murdered eight people and buried them up in the woods. He wants to confess and show them where the bodies are buried.
When Paul Gallo hears the news of the mass murder in the far off state of Alaska he thinks he may finally have closure to what happened to and the whereabouts of his twin brother who has been missing for over a year, the last photo he sent to Paul was from the remote village of Dreads Hand.
When Paul arrives in Dreads Hand none of the locals seem to want to help when he shows them the photo of his twin brother. There's an eerie feel about the whole town, from the wooden crosses lining the only road on the way in, to the locals going out of their way to not help Paul in any way. Stories of Devils and the woods, what exactly is going on in this tiny but very unsettling little town?
I recently discovered this author with the incredible 'Come With Me' and this one is just as good, I loved every page.
It's like a supernatural whodunit, page-turning read that gets more and more eerie as the story progresses.
The rest of his books are most certainly on my to-read list.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆
When Paul Gallo hears the news of the mass murder in the far off state of Alaska he thinks he may finally have closure to what happened to and the whereabouts of his twin brother who has been missing for over a year, the last photo he sent to Paul was from the remote village of Dreads Hand.
When Paul arrives in Dreads Hand none of the locals seem to want to help when he shows them the photo of his twin brother. There's an eerie feel about the whole town, from the wooden crosses lining the only road on the way in, to the locals going out of their way to not help Paul in any way. Stories of Devils and the woods, what exactly is going on in this tiny but very unsettling little town?
I recently discovered this author with the incredible 'Come With Me' and this one is just as good, I loved every page.
It's like a supernatural whodunit, page-turning read that gets more and more eerie as the story progresses.
The rest of his books are most certainly on my to-read list.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆
Read
March 9, 2019I decided not to rate this one.
Malfi is a very good writer and he created atmosphere with this story, but due to some hectic things happening in my life right now, I could only steal a 10 minutes here and a 15 minutes there to read. This made the book feel much too long - which, I'm fairly sure, would not have been the case if I could have finished it within a few days.
So, I can't really complain about the author or story, for that would be unfair.
I will give this author another shot in the future.
Malfi is a very good writer and he created atmosphere with this story, but due to some hectic things happening in my life right now, I could only steal a 10 minutes here and a 15 minutes there to read. This made the book feel much too long - which, I'm fairly sure, would not have been the case if I could have finished it within a few days.
So, I can't really complain about the author or story, for that would be unfair.
I will give this author another shot in the future.
October 4, 2017
"Don't you know what they say about that place?"
"What place?"
"Dread's Hand."
"What do they say?"
"That it's cursed," said the woman. "That terrible things happen to people who go out there. They lose themselves. Spiritually, I mean. Their souls get corrupted... You look into that woods and something looks back at you."
This is a great horror novel. I'm unsure how to describe it: part Stephen King; part Silent Hill; part The Thing; part The Village. Maybe this is unfair to Malfi, he has crafted a wonderful book here - which I'd like to think is not just an amalgam of spare parts.
Very creepy, very atmospheric - we are in rural Alaska - and full of extremely bloodcurdling situations. I liked it a whole lot.
And you don't really know where the story is going to go or what Malfi is driving at. I like that, too. I hate predictable horror books.
The book starts out with an old loner wandering out of the woods after not having been seen for years. He promptly admits he has slaughtered eight people and buried their bodies in the woods, and shows the police exactly where.
But is that what the book is about? A serial killer? Or is it aboutSilent Hill Dread's Hand, a place plagued by horrible occurrences, disappearances, and an extremely high rate of both murders and suicides? Or is it about Paul, and the bond between twins?
Paul's brother went missing up in Dread's hand. Paul wants closure, so he decides to do some poking around. How strong is the bond between identical twins? Will he ever discover what happened to his brother?
The book is crammed with horror tropes and cliches. I'm not saying this in a bad way. The book is genuinely creepy and a great one to read on a cool October night. We have:
Doppelgangers
"They're apt to think you're him, coming through the woods like a ghost."
"You've got to be shitting me."
"They say that's how old Mr. Splitfoot gets you. He holds up a mirror image of yourself to confuse your spirit. That's when he moves in, replacing your soul with evil. There've been folks who have claimed to have glimpsed themselves out there in those woods. My daddy told me of a man who shot and killed his mirror-double, but when he went to collect the body, it was a dead sheep."
Seeing someone behind you in the mirror
Then he stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. Carved into the glass at the bottom of the mirror was the phrase:
YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE
"No shit," he muttered. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw Danny standing over his shoulder in the mirror. He didn't turn around, but instead wiped an arc through the steam. Danny was gone."
Seeing things in the woods
When Paul glanced up, he saw a pair of pine boughs swing as if disturbed. He listened, holding his breath, and thought he could hear the inimitable sound of footfalls crunching down on a thin layer of snow close by.
Evil people/things standing at the foot of your bed and watching you sleep
He was lying in this very same bed, staring toward the foot of the bed and at a dark figure who stood there, masked in the shadows, staring back at him. Despite the fact that the figure was human, Paul had the sense that it was actually some animal - maybe a wolf, maybe a horned ungulate - crouching in the darkness across the room, watching him. The figure's eyes glowed green.
And
"He'd defecate on the floor of his bedroom," Gwen said.
Ryerson cocked her head. "What?"
"It was to be spiteful. He claimed that he'd started sleepwalking, too, and that he wasn't in control of himself when he'd do these terrible things. But I could tell that he was lying to me. It was one of his... his changes. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be standing at the foot of our bed. Just standing there in the dark, staring at us. Watching us sleep."
Humans wearing animal masks - and sometimes animal heads
He was just about to pull forward when a figure stepped out in front of the SUV. Paul jumped on the brakes and the vehicle bucked, the seat belt locking against his chest.
"Jesus," he gasped, unclenching his fingers from the steering wheel.
The person turned and looked at him, and Paul felt his whole body shudder at the sight. The figure was slight enough to be a child, although Paul couldn't be sure, because the person was wearing something over their face. It was a mask of sorts, though one crudely fashioned out of some animal's hide - or so it appeared - with ragged eyeholes cut into the grayish-brown fur.
They stared at each other through the windshield for several seconds, neither of them moving a muscle. Paul could see the small, wet eyes behind the eyeholes cut into the furry hide. Then the child - for it was a child, Paul was now certain, his mind having pieced together all the aspects of its physical character to arrive at this deduction - ran to the opposite end of the street where he or she joined two other children, both of whom wore similar masks over their faces. On the smallest child, Paul made out a single rabbit ear protruding from the side of the mask and drooping like the whisker of a catfish.
Parents murdering their children
"In 1967," Keith went on, "Lunghardt, a trapper who spent weeks on end up in the White Mountains, murdered his entire family with an ax - just chopped them up like kindling while they were still inside their home. His middle son made it out of the house, but old Lans brought the kid down with a swift drop of his ax between the boy's shoulder blades, killing him right there in the backyard."
Driving alone at night but feeling like someone (or someTHING) is in the backseat
A few times, and despite the utter desolation of those secret byways and twisting, serpentine passages, he'd be convinced that he was not alone. There had been a joining presence, like warm breath on his neck, as if someone was leaning toward him from the backseat. There had even been a few occasions when he had slowed down and peered over his shoulder while driving, terrified that he might find the silhouette of another person propped up back there. But, of course, he never had.
Something (someONE?) staring at you through your bedroom window at night
The woods looked as black as a coma.
Someone was standing outside his window, blending among the dark line of trees.
Paul felt his body flush cold. He stood there staring out the window, trying to discern further details of the figure. But it was impossible to do so given the snowy darkness on the other side of the snow-wetted glass. He could make out the dome of a head and the slope of one shoulder. Paul tried to convince himself that it was a trick of the light coupled with his frazzled state of mind - that it wasn't a head at all, but one of the tumor-like burls that bulged from the trunks of the Sitka spruce - but the longer he stared at it, the more that dark silhouette was undeniable. Still, he might have been able to convince himself that his eyes were playing tricks on him and that there was no one there if a cloud of respiration hadn't been expelled from the figure's mouth, creating a blossom of fog against the outside of the windowpane.
Shit.
THE WRITING
Daylight broke like an arterial bleed.
The writing in here is spectacular.
Blink and you'd miss it: a town, or rather, a memory of a town, secreted away at the end of a nameless, unpaved roadway that, in the deepening half light of an Alaskan dusk, looks like it might arc straight off the surface of the planet and out into the far reaches of the cosmos. A town where the scant few roads twist like veins and the little black-roofed houses, distanced from one another as if fearful of some contagion, look as if they'd been excreted into existence, pushed up through the crust of the earth from someplace deep underground. There is snow the color of concrete in the rutted streets, dirty clumps of it packed against the sides of the houses or snared in the needled boughs of steel-colored spruce. If there are ghosts here - and some say there are - then they are most clearly glimpsed in the faces of the living. No one walks the unpaved streets; no one putters around in those squalid little yards, where the soil looks like ash and the saplings all bed at curious, pained, aggrieved angles. There is a furtiveness to most of these folks, an innate distrust not just of outsiders, but even of each other. Fear has reached across generations until it is in the eyes of every newborn expelled from the womb.
There's a lot of good, evocative, atmospheric writing in the book. Malfi also does a decent job of describing disease, injury, and delirium.
Another thing I really enjoyed about Malfi's book is his use of humor. Even though this is a horror book, there were some genuinely funny passages in here. Far from detracting from the horror, I find this kind of occasional brief levity actually enhances it. For instance, here's a scene where Paul is waiting in a room full of people who have lost loved ones. A grief-stricken woman is showing an awkward Paul an album of photographs of her missing daughter.
Paul felt ill. Was this where it ended? In some police station in the middle of goddamn Alaska waiting to get his cheek swabbed? Was he now a member of some morbid, soul-draining club, in which he'd suffer through the rest of his life showing strangers pictures of his brother and asking if he looked familiar?
Genuinely laughing out loud here! And it's even funnier, because later in the book that is EXACTLY what Paul becomes, and it's so funny because you remember his little aside here. :D
Malfi slips in other little jokes, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once. Here's Paul, calling a worried friend/colleague/lover from Alaska:
"You think I'm foolish, but I am praying for you, Paul."
"You're too kind to me. You worry too much."
"I have never had to worry about you before. Ever. Until now."
"Why now? What's to be worried about?"
"You have your Manipura and I have my Ajna."
"Are you talking dirty to me now?"
LOL LOL I was just dying laughing. :D
Making Paul a professor of (literature?) was also a good move. I felt he was just the right amount of skeptical (although he did veer into 'stupid' territory a few times). A professor would be the perfect foil/tool for what's going on in this book. Smart choice on Malfi's part. I also didn't think Ryerson, the female cop, was written poorly, and that's quite a feat. Malfi didn't fuck it up, so credit where credit is due.
He also sticks the landing. Making a good horror novel is reliant on being able to write a good, credible, non-stupid ending. It's hard to do.
Tl;dr - I have to say I was impressed and surprised by this book. It was hard to put down. Moreover, it was both creepy - I read it at night with the windows open while all alone, I highly suggest you do that if you want to up the creep factor - and also gave me the occasional chuckle. Malfi has an impressive vocabulary, I learned at least two new words. His writing is fantastic. I would definitely check out another book from this author, and I am going to be lending this to a few people.
I'm not scared by books. Well, let me correct myself and say I am not afraid of supernatural things. I don't believe in ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, or what-have-you. So I was able to highly enjoy this creepy book - reading it at night was certainly exhilarating - and then easily go to sleep. My worries of a demon coming for me in the night are zero.
People who are more sensitive to this stuff are cautioned.
I highly recommend this book. Horror is one of my favorite genres, and it IS October, after all. :)
Read with Dan 2.0, Ginger, Erin Proud Book Hoarder,... yell at me if I forgot anyone. :)
"What place?"
"Dread's Hand."
"What do they say?"
"That it's cursed," said the woman. "That terrible things happen to people who go out there. They lose themselves. Spiritually, I mean. Their souls get corrupted... You look into that woods and something looks back at you."
This is a great horror novel. I'm unsure how to describe it: part Stephen King; part Silent Hill; part The Thing; part The Village. Maybe this is unfair to Malfi, he has crafted a wonderful book here - which I'd like to think is not just an amalgam of spare parts.
Very creepy, very atmospheric - we are in rural Alaska - and full of extremely bloodcurdling situations. I liked it a whole lot.
And you don't really know where the story is going to go or what Malfi is driving at. I like that, too. I hate predictable horror books.
The book starts out with an old loner wandering out of the woods after not having been seen for years. He promptly admits he has slaughtered eight people and buried their bodies in the woods, and shows the police exactly where.
But is that what the book is about? A serial killer? Or is it about
Paul's brother went missing up in Dread's hand. Paul wants closure, so he decides to do some poking around. How strong is the bond between identical twins? Will he ever discover what happened to his brother?
The book is crammed with horror tropes and cliches. I'm not saying this in a bad way. The book is genuinely creepy and a great one to read on a cool October night. We have:
Doppelgangers
"They're apt to think you're him, coming through the woods like a ghost."
"You've got to be shitting me."
"They say that's how old Mr. Splitfoot gets you. He holds up a mirror image of yourself to confuse your spirit. That's when he moves in, replacing your soul with evil. There've been folks who have claimed to have glimpsed themselves out there in those woods. My daddy told me of a man who shot and killed his mirror-double, but when he went to collect the body, it was a dead sheep."
Seeing someone behind you in the mirror
Then he stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. Carved into the glass at the bottom of the mirror was the phrase:
YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE
"No shit," he muttered. For the briefest moment, he thought he saw Danny standing over his shoulder in the mirror. He didn't turn around, but instead wiped an arc through the steam. Danny was gone."
Seeing things in the woods
When Paul glanced up, he saw a pair of pine boughs swing as if disturbed. He listened, holding his breath, and thought he could hear the inimitable sound of footfalls crunching down on a thin layer of snow close by.
Evil people/things standing at the foot of your bed and watching you sleep
He was lying in this very same bed, staring toward the foot of the bed and at a dark figure who stood there, masked in the shadows, staring back at him. Despite the fact that the figure was human, Paul had the sense that it was actually some animal - maybe a wolf, maybe a horned ungulate - crouching in the darkness across the room, watching him. The figure's eyes glowed green.
And
"He'd defecate on the floor of his bedroom," Gwen said.
Ryerson cocked her head. "What?"
"It was to be spiteful. He claimed that he'd started sleepwalking, too, and that he wasn't in control of himself when he'd do these terrible things. But I could tell that he was lying to me. It was one of his... his changes. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be standing at the foot of our bed. Just standing there in the dark, staring at us. Watching us sleep."
Humans wearing animal masks - and sometimes animal heads
He was just about to pull forward when a figure stepped out in front of the SUV. Paul jumped on the brakes and the vehicle bucked, the seat belt locking against his chest.
"Jesus," he gasped, unclenching his fingers from the steering wheel.
The person turned and looked at him, and Paul felt his whole body shudder at the sight. The figure was slight enough to be a child, although Paul couldn't be sure, because the person was wearing something over their face. It was a mask of sorts, though one crudely fashioned out of some animal's hide - or so it appeared - with ragged eyeholes cut into the grayish-brown fur.
They stared at each other through the windshield for several seconds, neither of them moving a muscle. Paul could see the small, wet eyes behind the eyeholes cut into the furry hide. Then the child - for it was a child, Paul was now certain, his mind having pieced together all the aspects of its physical character to arrive at this deduction - ran to the opposite end of the street where he or she joined two other children, both of whom wore similar masks over their faces. On the smallest child, Paul made out a single rabbit ear protruding from the side of the mask and drooping like the whisker of a catfish.
Parents murdering their children
"In 1967," Keith went on, "Lunghardt, a trapper who spent weeks on end up in the White Mountains, murdered his entire family with an ax - just chopped them up like kindling while they were still inside their home. His middle son made it out of the house, but old Lans brought the kid down with a swift drop of his ax between the boy's shoulder blades, killing him right there in the backyard."
Driving alone at night but feeling like someone (or someTHING) is in the backseat
A few times, and despite the utter desolation of those secret byways and twisting, serpentine passages, he'd be convinced that he was not alone. There had been a joining presence, like warm breath on his neck, as if someone was leaning toward him from the backseat. There had even been a few occasions when he had slowed down and peered over his shoulder while driving, terrified that he might find the silhouette of another person propped up back there. But, of course, he never had.
Something (someONE?) staring at you through your bedroom window at night
The woods looked as black as a coma.
Someone was standing outside his window, blending among the dark line of trees.
Paul felt his body flush cold. He stood there staring out the window, trying to discern further details of the figure. But it was impossible to do so given the snowy darkness on the other side of the snow-wetted glass. He could make out the dome of a head and the slope of one shoulder. Paul tried to convince himself that it was a trick of the light coupled with his frazzled state of mind - that it wasn't a head at all, but one of the tumor-like burls that bulged from the trunks of the Sitka spruce - but the longer he stared at it, the more that dark silhouette was undeniable. Still, he might have been able to convince himself that his eyes were playing tricks on him and that there was no one there if a cloud of respiration hadn't been expelled from the figure's mouth, creating a blossom of fog against the outside of the windowpane.
Shit.
THE WRITING
Daylight broke like an arterial bleed.
The writing in here is spectacular.
Blink and you'd miss it: a town, or rather, a memory of a town, secreted away at the end of a nameless, unpaved roadway that, in the deepening half light of an Alaskan dusk, looks like it might arc straight off the surface of the planet and out into the far reaches of the cosmos. A town where the scant few roads twist like veins and the little black-roofed houses, distanced from one another as if fearful of some contagion, look as if they'd been excreted into existence, pushed up through the crust of the earth from someplace deep underground. There is snow the color of concrete in the rutted streets, dirty clumps of it packed against the sides of the houses or snared in the needled boughs of steel-colored spruce. If there are ghosts here - and some say there are - then they are most clearly glimpsed in the faces of the living. No one walks the unpaved streets; no one putters around in those squalid little yards, where the soil looks like ash and the saplings all bed at curious, pained, aggrieved angles. There is a furtiveness to most of these folks, an innate distrust not just of outsiders, but even of each other. Fear has reached across generations until it is in the eyes of every newborn expelled from the womb.
There's a lot of good, evocative, atmospheric writing in the book. Malfi also does a decent job of describing disease, injury, and delirium.
Another thing I really enjoyed about Malfi's book is his use of humor. Even though this is a horror book, there were some genuinely funny passages in here. Far from detracting from the horror, I find this kind of occasional brief levity actually enhances it. For instance, here's a scene where Paul is waiting in a room full of people who have lost loved ones. A grief-stricken woman is showing an awkward Paul an album of photographs of her missing daughter.
Paul felt ill. Was this where it ended? In some police station in the middle of goddamn Alaska waiting to get his cheek swabbed? Was he now a member of some morbid, soul-draining club, in which he'd suffer through the rest of his life showing strangers pictures of his brother and asking if he looked familiar?
Genuinely laughing out loud here! And it's even funnier, because later in the book that is EXACTLY what Paul becomes, and it's so funny because you remember his little aside here. :D
Malfi slips in other little jokes, and I found myself laughing out loud more than once. Here's Paul, calling a worried friend/colleague/lover from Alaska:
"You think I'm foolish, but I am praying for you, Paul."
"You're too kind to me. You worry too much."
"I have never had to worry about you before. Ever. Until now."
"Why now? What's to be worried about?"
"You have your Manipura and I have my Ajna."
"Are you talking dirty to me now?"
LOL LOL I was just dying laughing. :D
Making Paul a professor of (literature?) was also a good move. I felt he was just the right amount of skeptical (although he did veer into 'stupid' territory a few times). A professor would be the perfect foil/tool for what's going on in this book. Smart choice on Malfi's part. I also didn't think Ryerson, the female cop, was written poorly, and that's quite a feat. Malfi didn't fuck it up, so credit where credit is due.
He also sticks the landing. Making a good horror novel is reliant on being able to write a good, credible, non-stupid ending. It's hard to do.
Tl;dr - I have to say I was impressed and surprised by this book. It was hard to put down. Moreover, it was both creepy - I read it at night with the windows open while all alone, I highly suggest you do that if you want to up the creep factor - and also gave me the occasional chuckle. Malfi has an impressive vocabulary, I learned at least two new words. His writing is fantastic. I would definitely check out another book from this author, and I am going to be lending this to a few people.
I'm not scared by books. Well, let me correct myself and say I am not afraid of supernatural things. I don't believe in ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, or what-have-you. So I was able to highly enjoy this creepy book - reading it at night was certainly exhilarating - and then easily go to sleep. My worries of a demon coming for me in the night are zero.
People who are more sensitive to this stuff are cautioned.
I highly recommend this book. Horror is one of my favorite genres, and it IS October, after all. :)
Read with Dan 2.0, Ginger, Erin Proud Book Hoarder,... yell at me if I forgot anyone. :)
August 13, 2025
A top drawer five-star read in the wonderful world of Ronald Malfi.
There's something about the name Malfi that says motherf*cker or mothballs or not very good that maybe you wouldn't associate with top-quality horror or thrillers? Boy, would you be wrong.
This is a tremendous read for all the right reasons: foreboding slow-burning structure and a perfect amount of restraint and if, like me, you hadn't discovered this amazing author until now, get onto it and read this or one of his other books.
I'll be thinking about Bone White for days to come while trying to piece together the final details of why events unfolded the way they did? There's a tiny amount of ambiguity right to the end that's really clever.
Are you local?
The key phrase on everybody's Alaskan chapped lips as you enter the town of Dread's Hand.
You're not from around here, are you?
We've all been there - some strange place in the middle of nowhere - walking in from the carpark and feeling more like an alien teleported down from its UFO (or Chevy Tahoe).
For all the hospitality and warmth you're not gonna get, figuratively arriving from Mars in a War of The Worlds capsule, surrounded by the local and hostile military who give no quarter or slither of aid.
That's a proud reference to H.G. Wells 👆!
That's how the devil feels: Unwanted, a perpetual outsider in backwoods/backwards Dread's Hand, the most savage and abandoned of little hamlets where everyone is local except YOU.
And that's what Ronald Malfi does so well! Creates a scary atmosphere through creepy writing that builds up and up, which rarely goes for the commercial lights, but remains within realistic boundaries instead of going jumpy/silly for fame and attention - a mistake many contemporary horror authors make these days.
To exercise that restraint takes a lot of discipline, determination and guts.
Ronald Malfi has done a stellar job of keeping it on the rails and I will be reading more of his work as a new found fan!
My only reservation is giving this five stars as it's perhaps not his best book?
But five stars is five stars!
There's something about the name Malfi that says motherf*cker or mothballs or not very good that maybe you wouldn't associate with top-quality horror or thrillers? Boy, would you be wrong.
This is a tremendous read for all the right reasons: foreboding slow-burning structure and a perfect amount of restraint and if, like me, you hadn't discovered this amazing author until now, get onto it and read this or one of his other books.
I'll be thinking about Bone White for days to come while trying to piece together the final details of why events unfolded the way they did? There's a tiny amount of ambiguity right to the end that's really clever.
Are you local?
The key phrase on everybody's Alaskan chapped lips as you enter the town of Dread's Hand.
You're not from around here, are you?
We've all been there - some strange place in the middle of nowhere - walking in from the carpark and feeling more like an alien teleported down from its UFO (or Chevy Tahoe).
For all the hospitality and warmth you're not gonna get, figuratively arriving from Mars in a War of The Worlds capsule, surrounded by the local and hostile military who give no quarter or slither of aid.
That's a proud reference to H.G. Wells 👆!
That's how the devil feels: Unwanted, a perpetual outsider in backwoods/backwards Dread's Hand, the most savage and abandoned of little hamlets where everyone is local except YOU.
And that's what Ronald Malfi does so well! Creates a scary atmosphere through creepy writing that builds up and up, which rarely goes for the commercial lights, but remains within realistic boundaries instead of going jumpy/silly for fame and attention - a mistake many contemporary horror authors make these days.
To exercise that restraint takes a lot of discipline, determination and guts.
Ronald Malfi has done a stellar job of keeping it on the rails and I will be reading more of his work as a new found fan!
My only reservation is giving this five stars as it's perhaps not his best book?
But five stars is five stars!
July 13, 2017
In the remote little town of Dreads Hand, Alaska a man walks into the local diner covered in blood and obviously not having bathed in weeks or months even. One of the locals recognizes the man as old Joe Mallory who hasn't been seen for quite a while in the small town. Joe shocks the others claiming he needs the local law called as he has killed people.
Seeing the story of old Joe Mallory turning himself in on the news and the police finding numerous unidentified bodies Paul Gallo knows he needs to travel to Dreads Hand and see if he can get news on his twin brother who he hasn't heard from. When Paul arrives in the strange little town he can't seem to get the answers he needs with everyone seeming to be covering something up.
Picking up Bone White by Ronald Malfi I knew that one thing I could expect and would be rewarded with is the creepiness he's known for. The story did not disappoint in that regard as he brought this weird little remote town to life with some sketchy residents and creepy town stories.
I did however find this a bit slow paced for my taste as really the entire book is the lead up to finally finding out what sort of strangeness had been haunting the pages. I also preferred Paul's point of view a bit more than when it switched at times in the story. I suppose that is because Paul seemed like the normal person in the creepy little town though. As usual though with this author I did enjoy the book when all was said and done.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.wordpress....
Seeing the story of old Joe Mallory turning himself in on the news and the police finding numerous unidentified bodies Paul Gallo knows he needs to travel to Dreads Hand and see if he can get news on his twin brother who he hasn't heard from. When Paul arrives in the strange little town he can't seem to get the answers he needs with everyone seeming to be covering something up.
Picking up Bone White by Ronald Malfi I knew that one thing I could expect and would be rewarded with is the creepiness he's known for. The story did not disappoint in that regard as he brought this weird little remote town to life with some sketchy residents and creepy town stories.
I did however find this a bit slow paced for my taste as really the entire book is the lead up to finally finding out what sort of strangeness had been haunting the pages. I also preferred Paul's point of view a bit more than when it switched at times in the story. I suppose that is because Paul seemed like the normal person in the creepy little town though. As usual though with this author I did enjoy the book when all was said and done.
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
For more reviews please visit https://carriesbookreviews.wordpress....
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