Mr. Sticks

Mr Sticks #1

by Jeffrey Hale

The dark net is filled with monsters. It’s frequented by thieves, drug dealers, child predators, and cold-blooded killers. But Mr. Sticks is the most fearsome of them all.

Mr. Sticks uses the dark net to locate the lost and vulnerable; to lure young men and women into his web. And once he has a fly in his web, he doesn’t let go.

Nobody knows what happens to Mr. Sticks’ victims, after the dance is done, but Lucia, an office administrator from Eaton, Colorado, is determined to find out. Before her sixteen-year-old sister becomes another notch on Mr. Sticks’ belt.

262 pages, Paperback

Published April 30, 2019

About the author

Jeffrey Hale is no stranger to suburban horror. He's been accosted by goat-human hybrids, chased by inbred wenches, attacked by giant killer bees, and survived countless hours of prime-time television. When he isn't busy fighting for his life, he can be found reading, writing, playing the bass guitar, or otherwise making a damn fool of himself.

Reviews

[Sherry Fundin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The dark net is filled with monsters. It’s frequented by thieves, drug dealers, child predators, and cold-blooded killers. But Mr. Sticks is the most fearsome of them all.

Mr Sticks, Mr Sticks, master of tricks,

Tallas a shadow and wide as a mouse.

Call him and tease him, but don’t displease him…or you might end up stiff as Barb Klaus.

That was the hook for me. The cover makes me think supernatural horror, but the dark net makes me think horror of the two legged kind. Sure did make me curious and I pushed it to the top of my reading list.

Let’s talk characters: Lucia is the main character. Finley is her sixteen year old sister. Their parents are no longer together, and the fact that Finley has gone missing doesn’t affect them at all. If Lucia hadn’t come home, no one would be looking for her. Brian Van Pelt is her old boyfriend, and her sister’s current boyfriend. I immediately disliked him and everything I thought about him being a douche came to light. The only redeeming quality he had was that he was willing to help her search for her sister. Peter is a computer whiz and comes on board to help them navigate the dark web and search for Finley.

Lucia does exactly what I kept telling her (LOL) not to do and l lost a lot of respect for her, but she was willing to put her life on the line to find out what happened to Finley, so I have to give her kudos for that.

Mr Sticks was definitely creepy and not easy to figure out. I felt like yelling through my ereader at Lucia. Everyone knows you don’t go off on your own. Nothing good comes of it. But, if she didn’t stay persistent, she would have had no answers at all. I give her a lot of credit for going the distance, but, boy of boy, did she make some boneheaded moves.

My rating is what it is because of my inability to figure it all out…and I was still left shaking my head and thinking WTH. Seeing Mr Sticks is a series, the story is not over and I am curious where Jeffrey Hale will take it.

I voluntarily reviewed a free copy of Mr Sticks by Jeffrey Hale.

[Steve Stred · Rating 4 out of 5]

** Edited as review is now live on Kendall Reviews! **
3.5/5

This may come as a surprise to those folks who have interacted with me or know how my imagination works – but I’ve never spent much time on Creepypasta nor on Reddit. I don’t know why. I’ve just never made the effort and I can’t see that changing. I did look into Creepypasta while reading this book to see if this was based on a real character, much like Slender Man, but didn’t find anything that says it’s based on a real story.

When Mr Sticks was offered up, I read the synopsis and was very intrigued. As well, the cover has that corn-field going for it, which is a draw for most horror fans.

The story follows Lucia as she returns to her small town in search of her younger sister, who has gone missing. As with most stories based around a return to a small town, Lucia inevitably bumps into a number of people who have been in and out of her life until she fled for the big city.

The singular difference here is that Lucia was diagnosed while in High School with Multiple Sclerosis and as such this plays a large role within her history with the town but also with her former friends. I felt a connection through the diagnosis as my grandmother had MS my entire life before she passed. I was glad to see Hale incorporate struggles of fatigue and loss of weakness into Lucia’s storyline.

The book opens with a riveting chapter that sets up the Mr Sticks back story, and I was really excited to find out more of the back end.

For me, this story was a fun read but ultimately left me wanting more in a few areas. More urgency for the search for Lucia’s sister. More details about Mr Sticks and his Labyrinth. More response from the police department. Hale made a decent point about why the search was stalled by the local police, but it still felt stunted, especially as the time period went along.

Ultimately the two things that brought the rating down for me from a four or even a four and a half star read, was the frequent breaks from searching (if it was me and my sister or family member that was missing, I wouldn’t be dawdling over the course of a week. I’d be following every lead as soon as it came along) and the ending.

I finished the book about four days ago and I’m still mulling the ending over and what exactly it meant. I don’t get it. I want to. I want to love this book, as there’s so much to offer, but it just felt like it frequently arose to a pinnacle of excitement before slowly deflating before my eyes.

The writing was top notch and the story moves along nicely. Hale does a great job discussing the interpersonal relationships and the various intricacies that are following Lucia along as she is in town. It was a decent YA Horror read, but at the end of it, I just wished more happened and that the ending had been significantly more satisfying.

[Skylar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed about 90% of this book. The Creepypasta angle was right up my alley, the breadcrumb-following dark web mystery was really interesting and enjoyable. I liked the MS inclusion and the vagueness of whether this was a supernatural story. And then the last chapter just sort of ended and I feel a bit cheated. I don’t generally require all questions to be answered or anything but I felt the ending was kind of poorly set up. I’d figured out that the “Miss Perfect” from Finley’s diary was probably Lucy and that there was perhaps some anger and resentment on Finley’s side that Lucy was unaware of, but it seemed to me that in order for Finley’s motivations to make sense, that we needed more details on their relationship. There’s a bit of a gap between “resentment” and “breaking someone’s knee in a cornfield and leaving them”. It’s also not really clear why Finley was murdered/taken(?) instead of Lucy but that could be intentional as Goodreads has this listed as Book #1 so maybe this will be a series? But either way, there’s not a second book at this time so far as I can tell, so I can only rate what’s here, so 3/5. I’ll probably try more books by this author as I think there’s a lot of good potential here.

[Erin Talamantes · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was sooo excited to read this book, I mean let’s be real, anything that has to do with the dark net is gonna be up my alley.
However, I just thought that the plot fell a little short for me. I liked the idea, but it just didn’t go in the direction I expected or wanted.
I did enjoy the supernatural aspect, I love a good supernatural twist, but other than that I just didn’t love it.
The characters were hard to get attached to.
Oh boy, don’t get me started on this ending. I sincerely hope this is gonna be a series, which I think it might, because the ending was so disappointing for me.
My full review is up on my YT channel.