Now first thing I have to say is that I really don’t like horror stories, and by that I mean the Stephen King and Dean Koontz style of horror stories. I recognize that they are both masters of their craft but truth is they both seriously freak me out. So I guess I’m a little old-fashioned in that I believe the best kind of horror story is mostly left to the imagination. Don’t Look Back Agnes is not the modern kind of horror story. It reminds of those old fashion stories that you would sit around in the dark telling each other until your imagination ran away with you and you jumped at every little sound.

Agnes comes back to the small town that she grew up in to take care of her ailing mother. The same town that she swore that she would never return to after that summer twenty years ago, the summer she lost three of her best friends. Her one goal is to put her mother’s home in the hands of a realtor and get her mother away from Fairfield as fast as possible.

Things don’t go as smoothly as planned. Her mother is much sicker than she thought and getting the house ready to be put on the market is going to take more work. And that is not all: the evil that stalked the small town of Fairfield may have returned, as there are three more teenagers missing. Does this current tragedy have its roots hidden in the past? Can Agnes, the only survivor of that long ago summer, overcome her fear in time to help this latest missing child? Who is her mother’s mysterious friend Herb, and what unknown tie does he have to Agnes’ own past? And then there is her growing attraction to Ben, the town’s deputy sheriff, another man from the past.

Kathryn Meyer Griffith delivers a delightfully shivery tale with just the touch of sweet romance in Don’t Look Back Agnes, something I wouldn’t have thought possible. Agnes’s fear of both what the past and the future holds is felt on every page but not to the point that it overwhelms the characters or story. So if you are looking for a story with just the right touch of “hoo!” and “hah”, this is the one for you.

Reviewed by Theresa
© March 2008