Back in the day a preacher named Wendell McFall was hanged from a tree outside his own church. McFall had gone a little nutty and was raving about the coming of God’s Second Son. After he sacrificed a child the townspeople took matters into their own hands. Forward a hundred plus years later and the latest McFall, Archer, has shown up to reclaim the church as a worshipping place for his fanatical followers. Archer believes himself to be the Second Son and demands sacrifices from those who hanged his ancestor. Many of these folks are only too happy to comply and it’s up to a select few who see through Archer to save the town and its children.

Ronnie Day is just trying to deal with life. His parents always fight, he has a crush on a girl, and his little brother isn’t smart enough to be afraid of the red church that they have to pass every day on the way to and from school. Ronnie’s biggest fears are realized when Tim decides to wander into the graveyard that surrounds the church and they discover a mutilated body that isn’t quite dead. To top it all off their mother has given up on Christianity and thrown herself back into the teachings of Archer McFall and doesn’t seem to have any qualms about giving her two boys up to him.

Here there be monsters and The Red Church has its very own in the form of the “Bell Monster”, a fearsome creature that lives/manifests in the church’s bell tower. The most frightening times in the book to me are when the two boys are being chased by the monster with “wings and claws and livers for eyes.”

The Red Church is a 2002 Stoker Award finalist and the first novel from author Scott Nicholson and while not as polished as his subsequent books, you can see the potential. This is a very spiritual book both for good and evil but it was a little too spiritual for me. There were times I wished everyone would just stop preaching. Since the whole story was heavily based in religion I get that you had to have the preaching, it was just a little much for me.

With blood and guts and death galore, The Red Church is definitely a horror book. It’s not just that however; Nicholson could never be that one-dimensional. It’s also a novel about faith, love and family. There aren’t a lot of characters here but the ones we have are well rounded and interesting, especially the bad guys. If you think Archer McFall is scary wait until you meet his mama! If you’re easily grossed out or offended this isn’t the book for you. If you like stories with kids in peril, monsters, evil religious zealots that practice gag-inducing rituals and dead people who won’t stay in the ground then this book is definitely for you.