"Steve Stred writes dark, bleak horror fiction".

Yep, that's about the size of it. I certainly can't say I wasn't warned. Ritual is a story that contains I don't know how many pages because Mr. Stred refuses to number them. Combine that with a non-traditional way of formatting the paperback and you've got an unsettling approach to an unsettling story.

We follow the main character, Brad, as he trudges through his daily life anticipating the coming, and nominal, Ritual. The narration is presented in a very detached way, so the reader keeps their distance as things go from a little off to more debased to what in the name of Beelzebub's car keys am I reading?

The last 20 pages or so(again, an estimate), lift the train off the tracks and send it careening towards destruction and mayhem. We go from weird, messed up people to full-blown supernatural and mythological mania. After being relatively subdued throughout most of the book, the end gives us some truly horrifying and grotesque stuff to walk away with. Well played, Mr. Stred.