Che Grayson

Che Grayson is promising storyteller who gets lost in the weeds with this overstuffed and flawed work.

A disgraced journalist travels to St. Augustine, Florida, to do a puff piece on the city's 450th anniversary celebration. She sees a path to redemption when men start dying bloodily and an archeological massacre site is discovered in a city park.

Demonstrating the same lack of journalistic skills that got her into trouble in the first place though, she recruits a local teen who is part of the show more story to help her investigate other aspects of the story. Colonialism, racism, and sexism spiral through a story peppered with secret cabals, alligator attacks, ghosts, a supernatural deer, and even the fountain of youth.

St. Augustine starts coming off like some ominous gothic version of Andy Griffith's Mayberry, a Southern small town from hell, but then I looked it up and found that it is part of a metro region of around 100,000 people.

While the main characters are interesting, they flounder through five chapters as Grayson plays her cards close too close to the chest before unleashing a bunch of reveals in the closing pages.

Trim out two chapters of filler and a couple of subplots that go nowhere, and I probably would have liked this. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what Grayson does next.

FOR REFERENCE:

Contains material originally published in single magazine form as Dark Spaces: Good Deeds #1-6. show less