I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours

Cassidy’s (When the Wolf Comes Home) new collection takes readers on a carefully mapped journey through 13 fear-inducing settings, dripping with unrelenting dread, immersive fear, and existential terror. It opens with the Stoker-nominated novella Rest Stop, in which Abe, traveling to the bedside of his ailing grandmother while internally struggling with their complicated relationship, gets trapped in a gas station bathroom and must fight his way out. Subsequent stories touch on Christmas and dating and go backstage with a famous band. The discomfiting road trip comes to a perfect conclusion with “Fruiting Bodies,” the shortest but most unsettling and expansive tale, in which a lone scientist studies a fungus with dangerous powers. Deceptively simple, bursting with grim humor, and utterly chilling, “Fruiting Bodies” leaves readers satisfied but also waiting for more.