Small towns freak me out. Though big cities are inherently more dangerous, there’s something downright eerie about a tight-knit, economically depressed community where everybody knows everybody else. As an outsider, you’re always under suspicion. Or perhaps you’re prey. You could disappear forever and all those who live there would back each other up.

James A. Moore exploits this fear to wondrous effect in WRIT IN BLOOD: SERENITY FALLS, BOOK I, the first of a three-book series, all of which recently debuted in paperback. (The SERENITY FALLS trilogy originally appeared as one huge novel in 2003, from a small press and sporting an atrociously ugly cover; I suspect it works best in three smaller bites, anyway.)

The small, colonial town of the title is anything but serene, having one of the most sordid histories on record. Unfortunately, that record is only an oral one, so Serenity Falls’ elderly recluse, Simon MacGruder, declares himself unofficial historian and decides to write a book about its 300-year history – partly out of interest, partly out of boredom. As he peruses police reports and interviews residents, MacGruder realizes he didn’t know the extent of Serenity Falls’ string of strange events. The trouble began shortly after its founding, when a woman was wrongly accused of being a witch and executed while her husband was out of the country; upon return, he promises to make the town pay. Being a dabbler in black magic, he does. For three whole centuries.

Simon’s research is interspersed with consecutive chapters from his book, each detailing a horrific event involving either murder, torture, rape, kidnapping, arson, demonic possession or any combination thereof. This approach is great, because instead of weaving their telling in via dialogue between Simon and his interviewees, it’s like getting several short stories that – while standing on their own – greatly supplement the main narrative.

There’s another plot, however, with a mysterious stranger named Jonathan Crowley. He harbors supernatural powers, which aid him well in dispatching the vampires he encounters as he moves state to state. Exactly what his role in all this is remains to be seen, as he has yet to step foot in Serenity Falls when WRIT reaches its close. With an ending that resolves nothing, WRIT may be mere set-up for the next two books in the trilogy – THE PACK and DARK CARNIVAL, both of which I eagerly await reading – but it’s highly satisfying. There’s a lot going on here, and even at 300 pages, it feels like an epic.

For the most part, that’s a good thing. It’s only detrimental when you struggle to keep the various levels of generations straight, but luckily, that’s not all that often. Moore draws you in from the start with an intriguing plot and keeps piling on so many instances of depravity that you can’t help but be wholly absorbed. One thing’s for sure: It’s never dull. The cover suggests it’s the best horror novel since ‘SALEM’S LOT, and while I wouldn’t go that far, it’s one of this decade’s better offerings in the genre. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.