Everyone in Doubtful, Illinois, knows the signs. First come the nightmares. Then technology starts to fail. And then, finally, someone disappears. Sometimes, those bodies come back in pieces, stitched up with red thread. Some people think the Stitcher is a monster supernatural being that crawled out of the mines, now closed, that once made Doubtful profitable. Abby Ward and her friends think it's a man arles Vickers, always there when a body is found, never convicted d they live by a strict set of rules to stay as safe as they can. But when the Stitcher takes Abby's younger sister, all those rules go out the window, and Abby and her friends find themselves in a race against time to find the killer, monster or man, before it's too late. Adult horror writer Coates (The Twisted Dead, 2023) excels at spooling out just enough information to keep the tension high, and this is a gory, genuinely frightening genre-blender with enough mystery to keep readers on the hook. They'll want to keep the lights on.

"Doubtful, Illinois, was a glue trap. People sometimes came in, but they very rarely left."Abby and friends Rhys, Connor, and Riya have rules to keep themselves safe and avoid getting taken by the Stitcher. The serial killer preys on people in this former mining town, stitching victims' body parts together with red thread. The four teenagers, who call themselves the Jackrabbits, keep tabs on the Stitcher's activities, but the Doubtful police seem unable or unwilling to solve the case. Officer Thompson, a new arrival from New York City seeking a quieter place after years of policing in the big city, is trying to learn more about the town. His teenage daughter, Jen, struggles to believe that the Jackrabbits' warnings are true-but things are getting worse in Doubtful. Technology is failing, and the Jackrabbits are having nightmares-signs that the Stitcher is gearing up to take another victim. In this page-turning horror story, everyone is at risk of falling into the Stitcher's clutches, no matter how careful they are. The rural Midwestern setting may seem familiar, but the evil that haunts Doubtful permeates the pages. Creepy imagery offsets scenes of amateur detective work. First-person chapters tell stories of those affected by the Stitcher; the rest follow the teen protagonists in the third person. Most characters read white; Riya is cued South Asian. Final art not seen.A small-town nightmare unfolds in this terrifying tale. (Paranormal horror. 14-18)