Ronald Malfi

Ronald Malfi is a superb writer and this is one truly brilliant spooky horror novel. Small town America, events that happened in the past coming back to haunt you, have always been a lucrative ground for creating atmosphere and don’t turn the lights off tension! Andrew Larimer, a successful New York lawyer, has left his past behind him, and the small town of Kingsport where he grew up, long forgotten. However when he receives a somewhat distressing phone call from a childhood friend, he decides to return one last time to Kingsport, leaving a pregnant wife confused and alone in the big apple…….Five friends; Andrew, Dale, Eric, Tig and the sad somewhat pathetic figure of Meach are being called to account over an incident and a secret that they have managed to hide for 20 years. Robert Graves now holds the key, or not, to their future wellbeing, and it would seem that revenge and retribution know no boundaries….This is a first class horror novel, with some wonderful twists that kept coming until the final page, an ending whilst not expected, was perfect to the conclusion of my favourite horror read this year. Highly recommended.… (more)

I’m an in awe of Ronald Malfi. After having read his third book (in my time line of reading not the authors of writing) Little Girls, he has delivered thrice and has me wanting for more.
Little Girls starts out as a simple case of inheritance. Estranged daughter returns to the house she spent her youth in. She hopes to sell it and with it the fears and bad memories still haunting her. But the complexity of the story, the characters increases as we read on. It does so slowly without us quite realizing so. Events and characters initially appear innocuous, holding no mystery, then as we progress, we make connections but view them as merely coincidental. Then, finally, a murderous truth takes shape where nothing and nobody remains innocent or coincidental.
It says on the cover that this is a ghost story. And it may well be, if you interpret events in the traditional haunted sense. I, however, saw nothing that could not be explained by the terrible things our own and mind can do to us when we have reached a cracking point.
In sum, this is a great work of fiction, I would recommend without reservation to any lover of plots that expose our human nature with brutal honesty that can produce deep-seating emotions with the subtle but powerful tools of literature and archetypical fears. Recommended… (more)

Ronald Malfi’s December Park is more than a solid read, entering ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ territory it ticks all the boxes that keeps you entertained for 16h / 534pp.
I suspect the author was growing up in the 90s for he truly makes the time and setting come to life. Pretty soon I felt transported into that transformative era when computers were slowly accepted in households, cassette tapes became obsolete, and heavy metal became music for the masses. The young protagonist ‘s family life depicted in the quiet town of Harting Farm is beautiful, the grandparents filling a hole that is left my a missing mother and brother.The youthful characters of a band of brothers of five are well-rounded, well-thought out, if not always that believable. The main character, aged 15/16 is a teenager that has, at times, thoughts much too mature and grownup. But that is forgivable, quite understandable even when we write of what has long past in our own lives. Besides, that unnatural maturity adds to the the overall reflective complexity of the main character. The mystery as personified by the “Piper” , an elusive character allegedly responsible for a series of disappearances in a small Maryland community just of the coast, keeps you one your toes and guessing. Admittedly, until very late in the book I had no clue as to identity and motive of the “Piper”. The story told scores high on suspense, high on being able to just observe the everyday lives of the band of youths, their silly yet often hilarious banter and name-calling “... uglier than Gorbachev’s wife, ... fart-faced perfumed anus opening” (not sure I remember that one correctly… (more)