“We take care of our own; the rest can fend for themselves.”

A good, old fashioned dose of prairie medicine. And by medicine I mean a jarring, historical romp through the wicked tale of the Bloody Benders. Camilla Bruce dragged me by the neck down this vicious, dusty road littered with irredeemable characters, twisted romances, and, of course, murder most foul. Evil spreads like swept dirt and between these pages, the cloying Kansas filth sticks to our fingers with every turn.

It’s historical fiction people. Historical fiction HORROR. It’s not going to be accurate to a story archivists already know nothing about. Also, criticism about the characters being unbelievable is unhinged? They were murderous Kansans operating sixty years before the freaking Dust Bowl: these were not good people? Not sure why a good amount of reviewers are holding a fiction author to task about extrapolating a fun ass story out of a loosely documented Midwest serial killer family active during the late 1800s. Lighten up dorks!

5/5 This was as fun and gross and unserious as I needed it to be. Not too little, not too much, Goldilocks style: just right.