Ben has been looking. He’s employed every method he could fathom: going door-to-door, chasing hunches, posting flyers. None of this has given him any good leads. Eric has been missing for 5 years, kidnapped under Ben’s nose in the local supermarket. Since Eric has gone missing, Ben and his family have dug themselves into a stagnant rut. They dance around the obvious, never confronting the horror they’ve faced resulting in strained relationships amongst the trio: Ben, his father, and his stepmother (Eric’s biological mother, who quite plainly admonishes Ben for Eric’s disappearance). Because money is tight and Ben wants to help, he takes a job at the local grocery store. The one Eric disappeared from 5 years before. As if seeing his brother’s missing posters and feeling the torment of Ben and Eric’s final moments here aren’t enough, the store is toying with him. Eric’s belongings and missing posters that were LOOKED FOR for ages start popping up. Weird symbols are found drawn in odd places. But what does it mean? Is Eric alive? Can Ben finally bring his brother home?

There’s a lot to unpack here. While the meat of Bad Man was exceptional, it took a ton of work for the reader to get those portions of the book. Auerbach sandwiched vital information in between multiple pages of trivial chatter, making it hard to want to continue reading at times.

WHAT I LIKED: The characters and their relationships were well written, capturing the complexities surrounding them perfectly. The story itself was sick. I loved the concept, the eeriness of the store, and the small hints dropped throughout the novel that pointed towards the perpetrator. The unpredictability of the conclusion left my jaw on the floor–I couldn’t think of a more full circle way to end it.

WHAT I DISLIKED LIKE SO SO MUCH: THE PROSE. This is my second Auerbach novel and the writing style throughout the first I read (Penpal) was not as unbearable as this. He included excruciating detail on the most mundane things that it almost felt as if I was reading a screenplay or script with set directions instead of a novel. What makes that all the more frustrating is that there were large portions of the story that could have been expanded on if not for the time taken to tell me someone left their seat to go to the sink. Portions of the story could have been linked together in a more cohesive way and expanded upon, making the read that much better. I’m sad this wasn’t the case.

IDK if I recommend this book or not. The story, characters, and nowhere town setting are so cool but, I’m not sure if it’s worth the time to sift through the BLEH that is the prose. I don’t regret reading this but I moved it to my donate pile with a swiftness.