Hinton Hollow Death Trip – Will Carver – blog tour review

Again, I have to thank Anne Cater for her amazing blog organiser skills for inviting so many of us to review Will Carver’s new book, Hinton Hollow Death Trip, published by Orenda Books on 13th August 2020.

The Blurb

It’s a small story. A small town with small lives that you would never have heard about if none of this had happened.
Hinton Hollow. Population 5,120.
Little Henry Wallace was eight years old and one hundred miles from home before anyone talked to him. His mother placed him on a train with a label around his neck, asking for him to be kept safe for a week, kept away from Hinton Hollow.
Because something was coming.
Narrated by Evil itself, Hinton Hollow Death Trip recounts five days in the history of this small rural town, when darkness paid a visit and infected its residents. A visit that made them act in unnatural ways. Prodding at their insecurities. Nudging at their secrets and desires. Coaxing out the malevolence suppressed within them. Showing their true selves.

Making them cheat.

Making them steal.

Making them kill.

Detective Sergeant Pace had returned to his childhood home. To escape the things he had done in the city. To go back to something simple. But he was not alone. Evil had a plan.

Our Author – Will Carver

Will Carver is the international bestselling author of the January David series. He spent his early years in Germany, but returned to the UK at age eleven, when his sporting career took off. He turned down a professional rugby contract to study theatre and television at King Alfred’s, Winchester, where he set up a successful theatre company. He currently runs his own fitness and nutrition company, and lives in Reading with his two children. Good Samaritans was book of the year in Guardian, Telegraph and Daily Express, and hit number one on the ebook charts.

My Review – Hinton Hollow Death Trip

Hinton Hollow, a place of Will Carver’s making – a small town, that hasn’t moved on much in the last 20 years since Detective Sergeant Pace left after growing up there. He finds himself back, having left London after multiple deaths from the influence of the cult – The Peoples Choice and hoping for a more sedate existence, but what he finds instead is death and no clues as to who the killer is.

Over the course of 5 days, the population starts at 5120 and lowers to 5013. narrated by evil, and following the lives of the those that are lost, men, women and children, evil is not selective. But it is knowing and does build in ways that we often don’t notice, a snap reply from a friend here, threatening behaviour from a colleague, little subtle hints at the possibility we all possess.

I like how Will’s books convey a message, or at least thats what I get from them. I loved Good Samaritians and have enjoyed reading how Pace’s life has followed in these books. Nothing Important Happened Today, saw Pace trying to stop multiple deaths at the hands of The Peoples Choice and now back he’s back in Hinton Hollow – has evil followed him? That what he’s beginning to wonder.

It starts with the death of a child, Jacob Brady totally out of the blue, no reason or rhyme to his death at all. Then the next day, and the next, same thing, over and over, is there a pattern? There must be, it can’t just be random. Pace is under pressure to solve and find the killer. This time the fault lies in the hands of others and they’re lackadaisical behaviours and interest only in themselves. What society consider acceptable, yet however is no longer that surprising, how peoples reactions to situations different greatly.

Will’s characters live their troubled lives the way the rest of us do, the routines of the school run, the years of no sleep with a new baby, the interference of the woman in the shop that knows everything about everyone. Will Carver tells the truth and its rare I find this happens at all now, he doesn’t embellish the glory, he tells the gritty real life side of Hinton and how real life really is.

Hinton Hollow Death Trip is a greatly polished book, it’s refreshing in a world of publishing to find books like this and long may Will Carver continue to produce them with Orenda by his side. I personally think Hinton Hollow was quite mild in its darkness, compared to Will’s previous reads when I’ve been left audibly gasping at the hell he’s unleashed, maybe that’s just me and I am no longer as shockable? As I see the world differently, we all do, the sugar coating that life brings with it, the lives we see on facebook and Insta that some of us consider real and some of us know are the best photos of a selection of ones that show the faces of people not smiling and putting on a show.

Either way, Will Carver conveys all this via words and in a way that no one else can, his characters all tell their own stories – and Hinton Hollow Death Trip – book three in the Pace series continues to tell his tale spectacularly in only the way Will can.

Please follow the other bloggers on their reviews of this unique and amazing read.

To Pre-Order https://bertsbooks.co.uk/product/hinton-hollow-death-trap/

@will_carver @OrendaBooks @annecater