3 Chilling Horror Books to Read This Month, Including a Reissued Classic

Strange Pictures

By Uketsu; translated by Jim Rion

The Japanese author Uketsu, according to his biography, “only ever appears online, wearing a mask and speaking through a voice changer.” His work mirrors the mysterious nature of his persona.

STRANGE PICTURES (HarperVia, 236 pp., paperback, $17.99), the first of Uketsu’s novels to be translated into English, is a labyrinthine and multilayered horror mystery, full of cryptic images, about a series of deaths. The book opens with two college students in Tokyo reading a sad, abandoned blog that chronicles a portion of a man’s life. The blog is filled with personal details, including entries about the man finding out that he’s going to be a father and posts about the death of the man’s wife during labor. It also features mysterious drawings by the man’s wife. The students are convinced these drawings contain secrets and work to unravel them.

But that’s just the beginning. In the past, a string of unsolved murders plagued the region. In one instance, a man was brutally beaten to death with a rock while hiking and painting. Among his things was an unusual drawing, sketched on the back of a receipt and rendered in a different style than his other work. Is the picture a clue like the drawings on the blog? Who’s responsible for the murders? Nine drawings hold the answers, but cracking the case is much more complicated than it seems.

The novel is split into four parts. The third can feel repetitive, but the entire mystery is wonderfully complex and carefully crafted, so the misstep is easy to ignore. This is a story where revelations and new questions wait around every corner, and Uketsu keeps readers guessing until the very end.

At Dark, I Become Loathsome

By Eric LaRocca

Most people associate horror with fear, but great horror can also incite a deeply rooted sense of discomfort and revulsion. The work of the author Eric LaRocca does just that. Blacker than the blood of a fountain pen and unapologetically queer, AT DARK, I BECOME LOATHSOME (Blackstone Publishing, 230 pp., $25.99) shares the gruesomeness of LaRocca’s previous work while exploring the inner workings of a mind shattered by guilt and grief.