Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.

Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.

I read Stephen Graham Jones’s “My Heart is a Chainsaw” in October of last year, and I was a little conflicted. I liked it, but I had issues with the structure and pacing. I’d heard that this book was better, and while I did enjoy the basic story more than the one in the first book, I still felt like there was still too much crammed into one story.

In this book, we journey back to the town of Proofrock, ID, where new horrors await the surviving characters introduced in “My Heart Is a Chainsaw .”We once again follow the ultimate final girl, Jade Daniels (a character I actually REALLY like). Jade (who has reverted to going by her more demure birth name – Jennifer) has just been released from prison and returned to Proofrock. Her return just so happens to coincide with a massive snowstorm and the escape of a convicted serial killer known as Dark Mill South. He escaped after his convoy crashed during the snowstorm, and he is hiding away in Proofrock. As Jade tries to reorient herself and reconnect with people from her past, she is faced with a series of brutal and disturbing murders that seem to be inspired by classic slasher films. Is Dark Mill South responsible, or is someone else murdering unsuspecting people and trying to pin it on him? More importantly, will Jade be able to figure out what is happening and who is behind it before they take her out?

I’m going to start with what I really liked about this book. As I mentioned earlier, I adore Jade. She’s tough, takes no shit, she’s a little unhinged, and her knowledge of slasher movies is off the charts. I also like seeing her return to Proofrock as an entirely different person. She’s aged and grown since the events of the first book, and she’s done time, so of course, she has changed. I really liked how she found herself again and realized – in a way – that maybe her slasher knowledge and her unhinged ways of the past weren’t entirely bad.

I also really liked how the killer was offing people in ways that mimicked some of the big deaths from classic slasher films. The guy impaled on the antlers a la “Silent Night, Deadly Night” was a fave. We also have deaths from “Scream,” “Friday the 13th,” and even “Happy Death Day.”

I also really liked the atmosphere. I love a book set in a cold, somewhat isolated setting. Having a crazed killer running around knocking people off while a blizzard raged was awesome and added an extra layer of intensity and claustrophobia to the story.

Now, for the major thing that doesn’t work for me in these books, which is the uneven pace and painfully slow forward movement. I realize this is primarily a “me” issue, but I want my slashers to be high-stakes and high-tension. I want to barely be able to catch my breath before the next big scare or chase scene. Jones tends to go into A LOT of detail and dig into characters’ heads so much that it ruins the story’s forward momentum for me. While I appreciate getting to know the characters, I don’t need pages upon pages (sometimes chapters) of internal monologues and thoughts that could have been summarized in a few paragraphs and kept the pace clipping along. This is a 480-page book that could have easily been much shorter and still just as impactful (and a lot more thrilling to read, in my opinion).

In the end, this was another mixed bag for me. I love Jade, and I loved the setting and the concept; I just felt like it got mired down in too many details. I want my slashers to unwind at a breakneck pace, and that isn’t this book. Did I like it? Absolutely, but I didn’t love it. Since I am committed to Jade’s story, I will be reading the final book in the series – maybe next October.