Bentley LittleRecensioner

“The fact is, no one cares about supporting us local businesses.”

Man, ain’t that the truth! This book was written in 1998, before Amazon.com became what it is today, but 'The Store' on these pages sure reminds me of what Bezos has done to small towns and businesses today! Except for the killings and baby snatchings of course. So far...

Basically, The Store moves into Juniper, Arizona and quickly takes over the town and all of its services, as well as bankrupting all the local businesses. I think the author based it on Wall Mart, but really, in 2024, it is what Amazon does. Creepy that Bentley Little was 26 years ahead of the game!

Great opening prologue and I really liked how the part two of the epilogue called back to it! I personally have great disdain for big boxes, Amazon, and the like, so I really liked the themes of this book, even if it does go off the rail at times!

One question though - um, what happened to Sam?

Another good Entry in the ever expanding Bentley Little catalogue.

Death Instinct is terrifying, terrifyingly close to being absurd. Well, obviously I’m not reviewing Sigmund Freud’s work. This is Bentley Little’s horror novel with the same title. However, some may claim to have found similarities between the two authors.
Okay, let’s get serious. This is an odd one out for sans any of the supernatural, Death Instinct is as much crime mystery as it is horror. Even so this, then, seems more grounded in reality, Bentley little does even here walk, write close to a thin line that is merely one step, one mad scratch away from entering the territory of the absurd. However, no matter how preposterous and inane his propositions , and this time he was truly blowing the horn of plenty, he manages never to overstep. I mean seriously, a talent for murder from the the most unlikely suspect. And when I say most unlikely, I mean so unlikely it is borderline absurdity. But then again, Bentley pulls it off, somehow. I really want to say more here but then I would have tick tick spoiler alert. So I will leave it at at.
Death Instinct is amazing and in my humble opinion one of Bentley Little’s best.

Of the 13 Bentley Little books that I've read, the majority tend to be less than interesting and enjoyable experiences (see The Return, The Town, The Burning, Death Instinct, and The Waiting). Why do I keep going back to his books, you ask? Well, there have been a few really good ones in The Store, The Association, and The Policy that found themselves in between the duds. Sadly though, this book falls (flatly) in the first grouping.
The Vanishing is a goopy mess with a slow, convoluted plot and less-than-memorable characters. I wasn't sure if I was reading a novel with a plot dealing with aliens, the paranormal, or just the freaky. And, I still don't understand why it was titled The Vanishing.
This might be the final straw for this reader's following of Bentley Little novels. There are too many books and not enough time to invest in something like this.

Another fun book.



Lots of detailed animal death in the beginning. Skippable. Just let your eyes skim right over it. You won't miss a thing.

Humans die in great quantities.



I am seriously enjoying this run on Bentley Little. He's kind of a riot. I gotta take a break though.

Fun. This one pokes fun at the totalitarian bureaucratic state agency that can exist through time without changing its power base or quality of leaders, while accumulating more laws and rules directed at normal citizens.

Horror ensues. Of course it does, this is a Bentley Little book.

Disgusting and depraved, without the qualities that make Little so much fun to read. This is more for the splatter punk crowd. I almost stopped a couple of times, but it's Little, so I might as well skip the truly awful junk and move on. I missed a lot of the book, I skimmed/skipped so much. I'm not a splatter punk person.

This was definitely one of Little's early books. Yech. Unless you want to read alllll the 1990s triggers, stay away from this one.

Why the two star? Well, it's still Bentley Little. This was his first foray into the style he'd follow for the rest of his writing career. His books usually contain a good bit of tongue in cheek humor. This one had a hint, but not enough to make up for the truly rough stuff. I enjoyed the general idea, but not exploits.

It's Bentley Little. He's got a huge catalog, I have his books already, and he's my go-to author when I can't figure out what I want to read next.

This book is centered around mysterious happenings in a small town in Arizona. It's a little different from most of Little's books. It doesn't focus on the evils of corporate culture or the ruination of a cooperative community by the people who should be saving it. There is a furtive, enigmatic character who drops in the beginning who is clearly not quite human. Anyone who has read other Little books will recognize a deviation from the pattern this time. It's interesting for the author.

The other main characters are likable, with their own foibles. There are red-shirts galore.

I know there is going to be animal abuse when reading a Little book, so yeah, I have been warned. The second someone realizes the pet is missing, I know what's coming next. Now everyone else has been warned. It lasts for about a page and a half. The hard part in this one is that I just adopted an adorable black cat that bites. Skipped right on over that part. The problems with reading horror and having pets.

There's also some pretty horrible farm animal deaths in the beginning. Skimmed and got the main points.

Otherwise, the book is set in the 1980s. It was nice to drop back into a world without social media and smartphones. It was an enjoyable read.

Bizarre depravity in unexpected places, gore, a little animal abuse/death (skimmed right through that!), and loads of horrible treatment to humans. Just like the office we have all worked in. Especially when the grossly overpaid Consultants show up to make our lives miserable and our livelihoods gone. Work horror satire is what Little does best, and he literally tears CompWare a new one from the first floor to the seventh.

I am super-duper annoyed that he didn't drop the meaning of BFG. I mean, how can we know anything??

Life is too short to read horrible books like this.

Bad. Really bad. I finished it just out of curiosity. Example sentence: "Even as creepy as she seemed these days, Jody would not have defecated in a book." AHAHAHAA! So, at least I got a laugh out of it.

Didn't read much on holiday break, so it took me longer to finish this book than I had originally figured. The book was really good. Quirky and absurd...how one person thinks the DMV really runs. It's a government agency, so there might be a little truth to some of this (joking). The harrowing sequence of events caused by the DMV make the characters even more likeable. I enjoyed the story.

WONDERFUL! TOTALLY CREEPED ME OUT!!

This book ran out of steam for me in the end. I enjoyed most of it but it was a little longer than I thought it should be. There were also a couple of “horror” scenes that mostly grossed me out and made me wish I hadn’t read them.

A fairly good collection of short stories. My main problem was that the book was wildly uneven. Some stories were great and some stories were really poor. You will find yourself picking and choosing the stories you want to finish.

As noted by other reviewers of this book, it's pretty clear that Bentley Little books hit a few home runs, but have some strikeouts too with readers. Happily, this was the category of the former and not the latter for me. In "The Disappearance", Little weaves a genuinely creepy plot around the lives of 5 UCLA college students who become ensnared in the clutches of a cult led by its leader known as "Father".
Unbeknownst to the quintet, one of their members, Joan, once belonged to Father's cult but was able to escape. While the group is partying out at the Burning Man festival, the group is drugged and Joan is kidnapped by cult members. Her boyfriend, Gary, and the others are determined to find out what happened to her. From this point on, Little takes readers on a realistic look into the world of cults and their effect on its believers. There are a few dynamic plot twists that all culminate in a satisfying ending.½

8/14/2023: This is my first workplace horror and I have thoughts. Review coming soon, but I'd like to say this now: This book felt like I worked there and those consultants were on something else. I was ready to quit and wondered why most characters didn't (lol).

8/19/2023: It’s been a couple days since I’ve finished this book and I’m still not sure what to say about it. I guess what I said before is all.

The Haunted is a solid ghost story. Nothing you haven't read before but not entirely the same as others. He isn't breaking new ground but that's ok. Scary but not gory/graphic. Realistic and relatable family. He creates believable characters that I enjoy. This is my 5th BL book and I'd rank it right about in the middle. Much better than "The House" but can't touch "The Association."

A story about the scariest thing imaginable....HOAs!

I'm not convinced this is fiction. It seems entirely believable. All jokes aside this book ruled and was creepy as hell. If you hate authoritarian elitists you'll love this book.

I really wasn't sure how to categorize this book. It's a little horror, conspiracy, fiction, ..... It was also too long & a little boring. Jason is a guy who likes to write letters. Starting at a young age he is a master craftsman for writing letters. Throughout his life he wrote to a pen pal, complaints so he could get free stuff, threatening letters to get politicians & policies changed, letters to get people removed from job, movie reviews, music reviews, etc. We go on a journey with him & his letter writing that lands him a job with a nameless company that eventually all he does it write letters day in & day out BUT there is something amiss. The book was bizarre after that and really not worth the read

Sixty pages in and already too many instances of sexualizing an adolescent girl for my taste. The fact that it’s described as “sensual” is grotesque. Not the kind of horror I’m interested in. Closing this one unfinished.

DNFing at 76 pages. It's not bad, just boring. I can see how others would like this book. It's just not for me.

En Juniper, Arizona, nunca ocurre nada extraordinario. De modo que el anuncio de la apertura de El almacén supone una gran novedad. Todo lo que uno pueda querer estará bajo un mismo techo y a un precio increíble. Pero conviene tener cuidado con lo que uno quiere... Bill David es el único en el pueblo que es capaz de percibir el mal que bulle en torno a El almacén. El proceso de construcción ha estado rodeado de extrañas irregularidades, y la influencia y el poder de la empresa están adquiriendo dimensiones espeluznantes. Pese a todo, Bill no puede impedir que sus dos hijas adolescentes busquen trabajo en El almacén. Y, entonces, empiezan a ocurrir cosas extrañas. ¿Qué pasa exactamente en los sótanos de la tienda? ¿Quiénes son los misteriosos jefes nocturnos? Cuando por fin Bill toma cartas en el asunto, conseguirá ir más allá de lo que había imaginado, aunque a un precio aterrador. Ahora El almacén está dispuesto a negociar, y Bill deberá enfrentarse a su misterioso propietario para salvar a su familia, su pueblo y su vida.

I hate to say it, but this book was a miss for me.

The premise was fascinating, it had all the elements to be an un-put-down-able thriller but it fell flat with the many chapters of explaining aspects of the characters that just didn't matter to the story.

Part One introduces us to the major players, and over all the majority of it can be skimmed through. It's a lot of nothing, filled with more nothing that could have been clipped to skip ahead to the actual story.

If you are following the events from book 1 this installment does give two small teasers about the culprit from book one but you can read the last chapter if that's all you're here for.

The middle gives us a tad bit more action, and build up but again fills every scene with pointless character thoughts and long drawn out walking bits that really just make it hard to slug through.

Once the end comes around, it's worth it, as all the climax is surprising but expected based on the traits we've had beaten over our heads for the last however many chapters.

I love the growth Holly displays in this book, and glad the gang is back together for another case. Stephen King does a marvelous job at showing us we're all connected in weird ways. This is another 'funny how we're all 5 degrees of separation' from each other.

You'll love this story if you love slow burn thrillers, and the characters from the first Bill Hodges book.

Scary and well-written.