Onyx reviews: The Chill by Scott Carson

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 01/12/2020

There's something compelling about inundated towns. They make for fascinating visuals, whether it's a real town flooded by a natural disaster or a deliberate flooding, as is often the case in fictional stories like The Chill. Photo essays in magazines or newspapers show haunting underwater shots of submerged buildings or church spires extending above the water's surface. In times of drought, the waters recede to expose the former towns to the world. Horror movies and TV series (e.g., Les Revenants) often use eerie images of flooded villages to set the mood.

When the flooding is deliberate, families that have lived in towns for generations are relocated to make way for progress. In this case, the Chilewauke Reservoir (known as "the Chill") was created where the upstate New York town of Galesburg once existed. The reservoir was one of three created to supply water to New York City, hundreds of miles downstream, this one designated as a backup. The underground tunnels that would have channeled the water to the Big Apple were never completed, a fact that didn't sit well with the displaced residents. Little attention has been paid to the dam's upkeep for decades.

People lived in Galesburg as long as America has existed, and the descendents of the original settlers didn't give up the town without a fight. Refusing to bow to eminent domain, they murdered Jeremiah Fleming, the dam's designer, and they've been plotting their revenge for decades. The time has come to put their plan into effect. People with connections to the original Galesburg families are drawn back to the dam and Torrance County. Carson didn't assign the county name carelessly. The allusion is to The Shining (check out The Chill's dedication, an homage to Stephen King—Carson's name was inspired by the Robert Redford film The Natural), and the submerged town of Galesburg is as haunted by malignant spirits as the Overlook Hotel. Their desire for retribution could lead to a disaster of monumental proportions. Once their plan starts taking off and their powers are revealed, it seems impossible that anything could stand in their way.

The book is told from multiple perspectives and at two main locations: Torrance (upstream) and in a water tunnel beneath New York City (downstream). The cast includes Mick Fleming, a state dam inspector, grandson of the man who designed the dam at the Chill, Gillian Mathers, a law enforcement officer with the Department of Environmental Protection, whose grandmother vanished at the reservoir when Gillian was a little girl, and Deshawn Ryan, who has spent his life digging tunnels but who also has an intimate connection to the dam across what once was Cresap Creek.

The main character, Aaron Ellsworth, son of the straight-arrow local sheriff and descendant of the sheriff who evicted the people of Galesburg, a troubled young man who washed out of the Coast Guard and turned to drug abuse and other questionable life choices after he returned home. His aborted experiences with the Coast Guard provide him with skills that will come in handy later in the novel. However, his first aquatic adventure is less uplifting: while attempting to prove himself to his disappointed father by swimming in the ominously named Dead Waters near the reservoir, he has a confrontation with a stranger that ends in tragedy...or so it seems. The outcome of the encounter should have yielded a body, and it does—just not the one Aaron was expecting to find.

Like all good supernatural thrillers, it takes a while for readers and characters to become aware that something otherworldly is taking place. The apparent outcome of Aaron's encounter makes it seem like he's losing his grip on reality, a definite possibility given his recent history. However, the truth of the situation becomes clear and all bets are off in terms of what is possible and what isn't.

Along the way, Carson explains the inner workings and potentials for failure of dams, the inherent dangers in digging tunnels (on average, one death per mile), and how major urban centers rely on water supplied by sources far from the city. He blends this fascinating information with the equally compelling story, to inform and entertain readers at the same time. It's a delicate balance that takes a skilled hand.

Carson is a skilled hand, indeed. He is Michael J. Koryta, writing under a pen name, the author of a string of bestselling thrillers, each of which is built around detailed research into a fascinating topic like high-tension electricity towers and locked-in syndrome. Although he has written supernatural thrillers in the past (e.g. So Cold the River), he has made his name in recent years with straight suspense and crime novels. Since readers of one genre are often disinterested in another, Koryta decided to distinguish this book from his mainstream novels through the use of a pen name. He is committed to a follow-up "Carson" novel, with the possibility for more books on the "dark and creepy side" under his new pseudonym.