The Dead Boys – Royce Buckingham

The Dead Boys was the first review book I have ever received since starting this blog, and I found it oddly fitting. I carried it along with me as PoseySessions forced me to drive her 3 hours away to attend a book club with a local author. I sat in the sun baked parking lot with the book on the passenger seat, contemplating what to do, I was in a big city and had a few hours to spare. The magnificently creepy cover of The Dead Boys kept calling me, and I gave in. Rather than exploring or finding something else to fill my time I cracked open this gem of a book. The fact that 2 hours later, in that same hot parking lot, with windows down on the car, I closed the back cover over the book and let out a contented sigh just goes to show how gripping and exciting this book is.

The Dead Boys is a Middle Grade novel, probably as can be judged from the title, geared for young boys. Buckingham is a fantastic kids author. He really brought to life the sleepy and dreary little desert town. He made me sympathize with Teddy moving to a new city, and later on he scared the pants off me as some of the visuals he described leaped off the page at me. The book is excellent. The narrative is straightforward and easy to follow, it jumps around a little bit but not enough to really lose the reader. As you close the book you realize it made sense all along, and all the little slips in the story were part of the intrigue.

The book was SCARY, yes, scary enough to make me, a grown man, in a brightly lit school parking lot, in the middle of the day, jump a little bit at a couple of really awesome parts. Buckingham has a well developed style that works extremely well in a spooky novel. I felt like I was watching events unfold, that I could SEE them happening on the page, not just reading a page of black and white text. The idea of the book is original and really fun. Buckingham trims the fat from the story, leaving out a lot of the little extra stuff that does not need to be in these kind of novels. It makes the book streamlined and focused, which is great, because this is a scary story, nothing more. It is a great scary story.

I really love these fun little stories, it transported me back to my childhood and late night reads of anything with Goosebumps written on the cover. The story is along those lines, but Buckingham’s story is more refined, more well thought out, and downright creepier.

I highly recommend The Dead Boys as a spooky Halloween read for anyone looking to be a little creeped out.