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Dark Silence by Rick Hautala
This latest masterpiece from the acclaimed and multi-million-copy-selling author of Cold Whisper tells of a young boy who moves to his family's homestead in Maine and discovers that the old mill on the property holds the secret to tragic and horrific events of long ago. "Hautala is a modern master of horror . . . (who) captures the things we fear. . . ".--Matthew Costello.
Mass Market Paperback
First published October 1, 1992
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About the author
Rick Hautala
137 books126 followersAKA A.J. Matthews
Rick Hautala has more than thirty published books to his credit, including the million copy, international best-seller Nightstone, as well as Twilight Time, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Impulse, and The Wildman. He has also published four novels—The White Room, Looking Glass, Unbroken, and Follow—using the pseudonym A. J. Matthews. His more than sixty published short stories have appeared in national and international anthologies and magazines. His short story collection Bedbugs was selected as one of the best horror books of the year in 2003.
A novella titled Reunion was published by PS Publications in December, 2009; and Occasional Demons, a short story collection, is due in 2010 from CD Publications. He wrote the screenplays for several short films, including the multiple award-winning The Ugly Film, based on the short story by Ed Gorman, as well as Peekers, based on a short story by Kealan Patrick Burke, and Dead @ 17, based on the graphic novel by Josh Howard.
A graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Art in English Literature (Renaissance and Medieval Literature), Hautala lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein. His three sons have all grown up and (mostly) moved out of the house. He served terms as Vice President and Trustee for the Horror Writers Association.
Sadly, Rick died on March 21, 2013.
Rick Hautala has more than thirty published books to his credit, including the million copy, international best-seller Nightstone, as well as Twilight Time, Little Brothers, Cold Whisper, Impulse, and The Wildman. He has also published four novels—The White Room, Looking Glass, Unbroken, and Follow—using the pseudonym A. J. Matthews. His more than sixty published short stories have appeared in national and international anthologies and magazines. His short story collection Bedbugs was selected as one of the best horror books of the year in 2003.
A novella titled Reunion was published by PS Publications in December, 2009; and Occasional Demons, a short story collection, is due in 2010 from CD Publications. He wrote the screenplays for several short films, including the multiple award-winning The Ugly Film, based on the short story by Ed Gorman, as well as Peekers, based on a short story by Kealan Patrick Burke, and Dead @ 17, based on the graphic novel by Josh Howard.
A graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Art in English Literature (Renaissance and Medieval Literature), Hautala lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein. His three sons have all grown up and (mostly) moved out of the house. He served terms as Vice President and Trustee for the Horror Writers Association.
Sadly, Rick died on March 21, 2013.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
July 16, 2022
Hautala could always tell a good yarn and Dead Silence is no exception, but it is by no means perfect. This starts off back in colonial days in Maine with the hanging of 'witch' and her laying a curse on the judge and mob. We then flash forward to 1963 and spend some time with some boys who live in the area and hang out at an old, abandoned mill until one day tragedy struck there. Finally, the bulk of the novel is set in 1994 (two years after this was first published) and concerns the Parsons' family-- Edward, Dianne and Brian-- who also live in the same town, although Brian is just visiting for the summer (his mom lives in Arizona after she and Edward divorced).
Hautala definitely has a way of building tension and creating an atmospheric setting. Here, this is featured early on when Edward and Dianna are hiking and she falls and basically crushes her face. She lives of course, but has to have massive reconstructive surgery and her jaw is wired shut for months. Brian had just met Edward's new wife just before the accident and lets say they never really bonded.
I am more than a little mixed on Dark Silence however, as even after finishing the book, Hautala left too many questions unanswered and really failed to resolve some key issues. I loved the creeping sense of dread the book built; something is obviously going on in the small town and it is connected to the old mill. Dianna keeps hearing voices and crying and thinks she is going crazy, with occasional murderous thoughts about her husband. Brian is spooked by the old mill but also feels strangely attracted to it. Edward has some dark secrets that are eating him up. What is inducing the strange feelings and emotions? Is the mill haunted, and if so, by what?
This really is a slow burn for sure, but Dianne's horrible struggles with surgery and such evoke some serious shudders that keep the pages turning. This has the bones of a great story, but jeez, it needed a better editor; that often happens with Zebra Horror, however, as they were cranking out pulp right and left with more regard for cover art than content. Hautala also has a penchant for using exclamation marks and italics way too often, but after reading several of his novels, it just goes with the territory. 3 spooky stars.
Hautala definitely has a way of building tension and creating an atmospheric setting. Here, this is featured early on when Edward and Dianna are hiking and she falls and basically crushes her face. She lives of course, but has to have massive reconstructive surgery and her jaw is wired shut for months. Brian had just met Edward's new wife just before the accident and lets say they never really bonded.
I am more than a little mixed on Dark Silence however, as even after finishing the book, Hautala left too many questions unanswered and really failed to resolve some key issues. I loved the creeping sense of dread the book built; something is obviously going on in the small town and it is connected to the old mill. Dianna keeps hearing voices and crying and thinks she is going crazy, with occasional murderous thoughts about her husband. Brian is spooked by the old mill but also feels strangely attracted to it. Edward has some dark secrets that are eating him up. What is inducing the strange feelings and emotions? Is the mill haunted, and if so, by what?
This really is a slow burn for sure, but Dianne's horrible struggles with surgery and such evoke some serious shudders that keep the pages turning. This has the bones of a great story, but jeez, it needed a better editor; that often happens with Zebra Horror, however, as they were cranking out pulp right and left with more regard for cover art than content. Hautala also has a penchant for using exclamation marks and italics way too often, but after reading several of his novels, it just goes with the territory. 3 spooky stars.
November 24, 2021
This story starts out in the 1700s with a woman being hanged as a witch beside the Saco River. She curses the land and anyone who ever dares to live on it. Eventually a mill is built on the spot and lots of people end up dying over the years. Fast forward to the early 1960s. Boys are hanging out in the old mill looking through a Playboy they stole. Two of the boys are brothers. One of the boys starts picking on the younger brother and the older brother ends up pushing the bigger boy. The boy falls, breaks his back and is confined to a wheelchair. Unfortunately, the younger brother, Mike, gets accused and is put away in a mental institution for thirty years. In the 1990s, the older brother Edward, gets remarried. His son has flown in from Arizona to spend the summer with he and his new bride, Dianne. On their honeymoon, Dianne falls the side of a cliff and bangs up her face. Over the following summer she begins to think the accident has driven her mad. More killings, a kidnapping, etc. made it an okay story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 23, 2020
The writing style is enjoyably over the top, and the prologue was great, but it's just too damn long. I struggled to finish as I had lost a lot of interest in a simple story stretched over twice the page count needed to tell it.
April 18, 2015
The name's a dead giveaway - it's quiet horror in this 1992 novel by Maine's foremost Finnish-American author. In the 17th century, a witch heading for the gallows curses the land around her. Later, a mill is built on the grounds, but by the 1960s it has long been abandoned. Two young brothers, Eddie and Mikie, enter the mill with a group of boys, only for one of them to get seriously injured in a fall. In the present day, Eddie's son Brian and new wife Dianne discover what haunts the old mill.
Witches and ghostly voices abound, but the story's about the living; the characters are haunted more by their fears and past actions than anything supernatural. Eddie himself carries guilt about the accident at the old mill, which saw one of his friends paralysed and Mikie sent to a mental asylum. Dianne has a near-fatal accident that echoes the fall at the old mill, and undergoes a painful recovery. Brian has difficulties with Dianne, probably simply because she's his new stepmother and he's a moody adolescent.
The mentally unbalanced brother, Mikie, appears later in the novel as a minor threat, but Hautala manages to make his portrait a complex one, with shades of sympathy. This is the novel's greatness; nobody in it is simply good or evil, even the witch and the spirits are mostly victims of bad circumstances. Surely this sort of depth and understanding is far above and beyond an average Zebra horror author's paygrade.
Hautala's mannerisms - the overuse of italics and exclamation! marks - are present, but unlike in Little Brothers they seem moderate, and don't draw attention to themselves. Subtlety has clearly triumphed over cheap cheesiness.
However, one cannot escape the sense that Hautala had a quota to fill - most Zebra paperbacks are suspiciously uniform in size, about 400 pages. There's some bloat in Dark Silence, especially in the latter half. But in the midst of this mass market excess there are the bones of a decent novel, with subtle characterisations and a vividly dark atmosphere.
Read all my reviews at mikareadshorrorfiction.wordpress.com
Witches and ghostly voices abound, but the story's about the living; the characters are haunted more by their fears and past actions than anything supernatural. Eddie himself carries guilt about the accident at the old mill, which saw one of his friends paralysed and Mikie sent to a mental asylum. Dianne has a near-fatal accident that echoes the fall at the old mill, and undergoes a painful recovery. Brian has difficulties with Dianne, probably simply because she's his new stepmother and he's a moody adolescent.
The mentally unbalanced brother, Mikie, appears later in the novel as a minor threat, but Hautala manages to make his portrait a complex one, with shades of sympathy. This is the novel's greatness; nobody in it is simply good or evil, even the witch and the spirits are mostly victims of bad circumstances. Surely this sort of depth and understanding is far above and beyond an average Zebra horror author's paygrade.
Hautala's mannerisms - the overuse of italics and exclamation! marks - are present, but unlike in Little Brothers they seem moderate, and don't draw attention to themselves. Subtlety has clearly triumphed over cheap cheesiness.
However, one cannot escape the sense that Hautala had a quota to fill - most Zebra paperbacks are suspiciously uniform in size, about 400 pages. There's some bloat in Dark Silence, especially in the latter half. But in the midst of this mass market excess there are the bones of a decent novel, with subtle characterisations and a vividly dark atmosphere.
Read all my reviews at mikareadshorrorfiction.wordpress.com
April 29, 2025
If your significant other suffers a crippling injury whose ramifications wind up significantly impacting your own personal happiness, you should be allowed to just break up with them without society acting like you're some sort of shithead. It's not like I'm the one who fell off that cliff--why should my social life be ruined, too?
September 14, 2020
I love what Rick does and this one was no exception. A creepy old mill and a witch! What else could you ask for? Anytime a witch is involved, I am thrilled. Again, Rick does what good horror authors do and combine a malevolent force and evil humans! Recommend this one.
October 5, 2024
Just awful. Spins its wheels for 477 agonizing pages. No clear menace or logical supernatural cause. You could literally read the prologue and skip to the last 50 pages. I’m convinced no one writes more unlikable characters than Hautala.
October 25, 2025
3.5/5 Very reminiscent of other books I read. Not the books’ fault, but my fault for reading this after all the other books similar to it. Kind of diminished the rating a bit. Well written, just didn’t work out due to certain circumstances.
December 6, 2017
Best book I've read this year so far, It's done in a classic Horror style and very character driven. Loved it, I won't give anything away but i recommend it to anyone that enjoys great Horror
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews