A surprisingly insightful literary work that belied its thriller label. If you start this one, stick with it and keep an open mind...you'll be surprised at the depth and truth of it.

You may also read my review here: http://www.mybookishways.com/2011/09/...John Henderson is waiting tables at a small restaurant in the Pacific Northwest,and house sitting for a friend in the area. It’s been three years since his young son died on Lake Murdo in Black Ridge,Washington,and he’s doing his best to live life and forget,when one day he receives an email that says simply “I know what happened.” Soon,John is pulled back to Black Ridge and meets a mysterious woman who claims the same thi...

After the sudden, and albeit mysterious, death of his son, John Henderson's life comes undone. He and his wife separate, he leaves their beautiful modern-mansion-like home and moves far away to reinvent himself with a life that is full of day-to-day necessities and nothing else. Three years after the tragedy that stripped his life bare, John receives an anonymous email from someone who claims to know what happened to his son, forcing him to return to the town he swore he had left behind and pick...

I hate it when a book sells itself as a psychological thriller and conveniently forgets to mention a big supernatural element! John Henderson heads off to Black Ridge in the hope to learn more about his son's mysterious death, but his informant is acting strangely. And so is the rest of the town! While trying to find answers, John helps the daughter of a friend with some troubles she's having with some drug dealers. What does this have to do with anything? Nothing, as it turns out!(view spoiler)...

Too much supernatural stuff for me

The plot wasn’t without flaws (I find sone authors rely on a supernatural element as a short-cut to creating tension, and though I’m not completely against this in a psychological thriller, here the aspect became more and more like a crutch) but it did - oddly tacked on side thread about helping a colleague and his girlfriend with a drug/money extortion threat apart - keep me fairly interested for long enough to get through.However there was something about the writing and the main character whi...

Very disappointed with this. I hadn't read any Michael Marshall since Intruders came out. I'd enjoyed that, but felt he was starting to repeat himself, and unfortunately Bad Things seems to confirm that. I enjoyed The Straw Men, and while I thought The Lonely Dead was a bit plodding, Blood of Angels finished the whole thing off in spectacular style; but really I long for him to start doing more Michael Marshall Smith stuff again. Spares is a genuine classic, and What You Make It is one of the be...

This book was very creepy. The bad things were indeed very bad. This was one of those stories where I just couldn't put the book down until I found out what happened or I'd be wondering & bothered all day so I read it in just a few hours. I liked how the theme of guilt & regret ran deep in the story of John Henderson. I've often thought those are 2 of the worst feelings in the world because there isn't much you can do to change them or get rid of them. Usually they come about through your action...

I tried to give the book a chance, with all the cliche and predictable chapter endings, but when they referenced some drug dealers as “black guys,” I stopped reading... There is zero need to make the drug dealers black. Just to perpetuate the ongoing racial issues in this country today. Pathetic & could have totally described the drug dealers in some other way...

This is my least favorite of his so far.The writing is REALLY good! The characters are really well-developed. Well... most of them.This book was all over the place. Is John trying to get over the death of his son? Is he trying to save his friends from drug dealers? Is he trying to figure out what happened to his son? Is there something supernatural going on? Is the town as a whole just bad? Are the townfolk in on it? And was the whole Becki storyline just a vehicle to make two gangbangers reason...

A very peculiar book. Plotwise it's messy and disjointed. The main story line starts off briskly enough but is then completely buried in the endless logistics of the main character's rushing around in the small town where bad things happen. The rushing around is meant to convey a sense of urgency, I think, but it's more like watching a soap opera. Every other page one character is about to divulge something terribly important to another, just to be suddenly interrupted or inexplicably leave. The...

A stunning, riveting, multi-layered mystery-and-more, “Bad Things” is so complex and convoluted that I can only think of Brian Freeman’s mysteries in comparison. Set in the Pacific Northwest (Washington State, Oregon, then Washington State again), the settings and locales become every bit as important as the human characters; in fact, the settings are characters in their own right. Black Ridge, Washington and Marion Beach, Oregon-especially the former-are fully-fleshed, fully-dimensional charact...

I have been a fan of Michael Marshall (Smith) since I read Spares quite a few years ago. I was expecting to like this book, but instead I loved it. Much like the Straw Men Trilogy, the action drives the book, but is not the main focus. Slowly and skillfully, Marshall morphs the story from possible paranoia to unfold the mystery and reveal the supernatural cause of the "Bad Things".The plot itself was interesting but what blew me away was the writing itself. I was completely absorbed and did not

When bad things happen to people is it because they deserve it? When bad things happen to you do you say to yourself “What did I do to deserve this?” The whole concept of action and consequence is brought into play… At least in your mind. In the case of Michael Marshall’s protagonist in Bad Things it seems that the very ultimate in bad things has happened, his four year old son has died. As an indirect result of this tragedy his marriage has ended and his legal career waylaid.When we meet John H...

A divorced father who couldn't understand how or why his son died has lived with the guilt until he is drawn back to where it happened! He is trying to help out a woman who says she knows - - What does she know and why is she evasive?

A creepy and sometimes gripping chiller set around a town where 'bad things' seem to happen. Another inventive and innovative tale by Marshall. As weird as it might sound, I always find Marshall Smith's work lacks a soul, I never get fully engaged with it! 5 out of 12.

This book is hard to categorize. Horror seems the closest, but not horror in a hockey mask/ I-know-what-you-did-last-summer way... more in a Twin Peaks/Blair Witch Project/ sleep with a nightlight on way. I loved the narrator's voice and the misty Pacific Northwest setting. This tale will really get you thinking about curses, evil, and invisible forces. Recommended reading for Halloween, but not for the faint of heart.

So after a week filled with way too many doctor appointments and precious reading opportunity I decided to try this story based strictly off the title as the movie Very Bad Things with Christian Slater and Cameron Diaz is one of my all time favorite movies involving the trippy and sick ways a night gone wrong proved too much for all concerned--I kinda thought this story would be full of twists and turns and suspense and all that but never really got that..The story starts off with the unexplaine...

What an irritating book, hiding in the library, masquerading as a thriller no mention on the cover of supernatural claptrap. A really good story spoiled completely by a total cop out, rubbish, totally naff ending. I stopped the cd before the final little bit, this is the first time I've ever done that. I was so annoyed by it. What a load of codswallop grrrrrrrrrr. It was really good, forgivable in the bits where it lacked something, I suspected it would end how it did fairly close to the end but...

I read it but I’m not sure what I read. The main story was confusing. I think it was about a witch but I’m not positive. Plus I’m not sure if the bad person in the book was the witch. There was also a secondary story that was pointless. There was no reason for this story to have even been included. It was like the author had 2 book ideas & tried to write them at the same time. It wasn’t horrible though. I did keep reading because I wanted to see what happened next.