Don't Fear the Reaper (novel)

Don't Fear the Reaper

Hardcover edition cover
Author	Stephen Graham Jones
Audio read by	Isabella Star LaBlanc Jane Levy Alexis Floyd Pete Simonelli Timothy Andrés Pabon Marni Penning Dan Bittner Corey Brill Matt Pittenger Jesse Vilinsky Migizi Pensoneau Lee Osorio Gail Shalan Alejandro Antonio Ruiz
Language	English
Series	The Indian Lake Trilogy
Release number	2
Genre	Horror, suspense
Set in	Idaho
Publisher	Gallery/Saga Press (US) Titan Books (UK)
Publication date	February 7, 2023
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print, ebook, audiobook
Pages	464 pp
ISBN	9781982186593 (hardcover 1st edition)
Preceded by	My Heart Is a Chainsaw
Followed by	The Angel of Indian Lake

Don't Fear the Reaper is a 2023 horror novel by American writer Stephen Graham Jones. It is the second novel in the Indian Lake Trilogy, following the 2021 novel My Heart Is a Chainsaw.^[1][2] The book received generally favorable reviews, and was nominated for several awards, including the Locus Award for Best Horror Novel, Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, and a Shirley Jackson Award.

Four years after the events of My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Jade Daniels is released from prison and returns to Proofrock. Sheriff Hardy shows her a white elk which has been wandering around town. Deputy Banner Tompkins is now married to Letha Mondragon. Letha, who was severely injured when Stacy Graves ripped off her jaw, has spent the intervening years becoming an expert in slasher movies, believing that she could have stopped the massacre if she had been more aware of the supernatural threat.

Meanwhile, convicted serial killer Dark Mill South is being transported through the area. South is missing a hand and has a hook instead. A blizzard arrives, making travel and communication difficult for the rest of the novel. An avalanche strikes the prisoner convey, killing most of the police officers. South escapes.

A high school student, Toby, is lured out of a motel where he was having a tryst with classmate Gwen. Outside, he is eviscerated and dies. Cinnamon Baker, a high school senior and survivor of the previous massacre, calls 911. She claims that Toby was killed after they had met for sex in a car.^[a] Cinnamon also claims to have found Gwen disemboweled and hanging from a tree, and blames both deaths on Dark Mill South. Jade notes that the deaths sound similar to the opening scenes of the slasher movie Scream. Cinnamon is taken to the police station for her safety, but escapes.

Banner and Jade follow Cinnamon to a nearby retirement home. Cinnamon's identical twin sister Ginger is a patient there. Ginger's head is kept shaved so she does not try to pull out her hair. Ginger tells Jade that she and her sister once found a blob of organic tissue under the town pier. Cinnamon apparently saw the blob grow into a young girl and disappear. Jade is unsure whether to believe this story. Jade finds three bodies, matching murder scenes from both Friday the 13th and Black Christmas. Jade returns to the police station.

Concurrently, three students (Abby, Wynona, and Jensen) sneak into the high school. Wynona is killed with a trophy, Abby is attacked with the lid of a toilet tank, and Jensen is impaled on a mounted elk head (resembling a death in Silent Night, Deadly Night). Abby is able to call the police station, but later dies of her injuries.

Letha and Jade investigate Terra Nova. They encounter Dark Mill South, who has been hiding in one of the abandoned homes since his escape. Therefore, he could not have committed the murders. The two women escape South but lose the snowmobile key and are forced to walk back. On the way they meet Claude Armitage, the high school history teacher. Armitage's internal monologue reveals that he had an illicit sexual relationship with Cinnamon Baker. The trio returns to the police station, where they meet Hardy and Cinnamon.

At the station, Cinnamon explains that she lied to Ginger wanted the blob to kill Proofrock residents and for the murders to be blamed on Jade. Since most of Terra Nova died and very few Proofrock residents died in the events of Chainsaw, Ginger feels the need to "even the score". "Cinnamon's" wig falls off, and she is revealed to be a disguised Ginger; she runs away.

Jade finds one of the twins murdered on Main Street. Jade believes the dead twin is Cinnamon and that she has been killed by Ginger. Jade investigates a local video store, finding most of the teenagers inside dead. They were given poisoned cupcakes by one of the twins, a reference to the film Happy Death Day. After they died, South entered the store and began mutilating their bodies. Since she has not seen Happy Death Day, which came out when she was in prison, she believes South killed all the teens. Jade escapes onto the street. South follows, and the living Baker twin arrives and confronts South, claiming that he killed her sister.

South is slowed by Cinnamon, but he turns to attack Jade. Kimmy Daniels, Jade's absentee mother who was working at the dollar store nearby, attacks South. Suddenly, Kimmy is killed by the white elk, which is still wandering Main Street. The white elk, which is implied to be the blob that Ginger and Cinnamon found under the pier, is a manifestation of the vengeful spirit of Melanie Hardy. Melanie is the daughter of Sheriff Hardy, who drowned nearly 30 years prior. The elk only attacks the people who were with Melanie when she died.

Cinnamon tries to attack South again, but he throws her into a truck bumper. Cinnamon is badly injured, but lives. It is revealed that both twins had shaved their heads and were wearing wigs. It is implied that Cinnamon was the one committing the murders, in retaliation for her classmates spreading rumours about her relationship with Armitage. Cinnamon planned the murders to resemble slasher movies in order to frame Jade, but later decided that Dark Mill South was a more believable scapegoat.

Banner hits South with a snowplow and drives it into the lake. Jade stabs South in the heart, finally killing him. The white elk tries and fails to gore Rexall, the school janitor. Rexall shoots the elk, which dissolves. Inside it is a version of Melanie Hardy, who is also slowly dissolving. Jade and Hardy walk across the lake in order to return her spirit to the lake. It is implied that Hardy decides to drown so he can reunite with his daughter's spirit.

When the authorities arrive, Jade takes responsibility for driving the snowplow into the lake so Banner does not lose his job. Jade is arrested. Before being taken away by police helicopter, Jade holds Dark Mill South's hook up in triumph.

For the setting, Stephen Graham Jones chose to set the story in Proofrock, Idaho, as he wanted to show that "there's not a single American Indian story" and that it does not have to be limited to areas they had lived or on reservations or to one specific idea of what it was like to be Native American. He also wanted the setting to feel like an authentic, genuine small town and drew upon his own experiences living in small towns while writing. In an interview with Barnes & Noble's Poured Over podcast Graham Jones stated that the trilogy as a whole will cover the process of Jade "coming of age" as he views the term as being "really kind of like a ritual that you go through to go to your next stage of maturation or just your next place. It doesn't even have to be higher just to the next place."^[3]

Don't Fear the Reaper was first released in hardback and ebook in the United States on February 7, 2023, through Gallery/Saga Press.^[4] A paperback edition released on September 26 of the same year, also through Gallery/Saga Press.

The audiobook has received a full cast recording and features Isabella Star LaBlanc as Jade Daniels; the character was previously voiced by Cara Gee for My Heart Is a Chainsaw.^[5] The rest of the cast is made up of Jane Levy, Alexis Floyd, Pete Simonelli, Timothy Andrés Pabon, Marni Penning, Dan Bittner, Corey Brill, Matt Pittenger, Jesse Vilinsky, Migizi Pensoneau, Lee Osorio, Gail Shalan, and Alejandro Antonio Ruiz.^[6]

Critical reception for Don't Fear the Reaper has been favorable, as the work has received praise from outlets such as Cemetery Dance Publications and Tor.com.^[7][8] The Los Angeles Review of Books also reviewed the work, writing that "You don't need to have read Jones's previous works to enjoy Don't Fear the Reaper, but it helps. Reading Jones's works sheds light on the deep, palimpsestuous connections running throughout his career: popular culture and lowbrow slashers teaching strong, complex young women the skills and the How to Survive Male Predators mindset better than any traditional self-defense course."^[9]Audiofile praised the cast adaptation of the novel, highlighting LaBlanc's performance and stating "For what is essentially a slasher story about a hook-handed killer, the performances are filled with surprising heart."^[6]