The Despair

by David Keyes

An unknown darkness has crept into the small Oregon town of Rosemill, placing a suburban populace in the crosshairs of a series of random acts of brutal violence. On an ordinary morning in front of a school bus, a man estranged from his girlfriend attacks and kills her in broad daylight. Across town, a prospective mother harms her unborn child. Another attempts to drown the young twins that she is babysitting. No obvious link exists between these otherwise isolated incidents, except that each appears to predict the next with inexplicable precision over the course of a single, hellish week of senseless mayhem.

Dr. Jill Garson, a former criminal psychologist-turned-small-town therapist, anticipates the answer lies somewhere in her field of study, but when she pairs up with a superstitious police officer to unravel the mystery, they both soon realize there is more to the crimes than mere police procedure or behavioral psychology. But is the violence a consequence of something environmental? Chemical? Or something far more sinister?

As the two race against the clock to stay one step ahead of the escalating pattern, they come to discover a terrible secret that threatens to unravel everything they know about Rosemill’s seemingly-serene existence.

325 pages, Paperback

Published March 9, 2026

About the author

David Keyes has been writing since he was a teenager. An avid follower of film for most of his adult life, he began reviewing movies in the emerging online format in the summer of 1998 (well before the notion of "blogging" was in fashion). He has kept with that tradition for over twenty years, and in 2014 began to release digital annual anthologies of his essays. Additional publications have followed, including "Admit No One" (2017) and "Hell on Reels," both celebrating bad films and horror movies, respectively.

2020 saw David move to fiction, with the release of "A Nightmare in Oz," the first in his series The New Oz Chronicles. Five novels overall have been published in the series, with a sixth expected in 2027.

"The Despair," due March of 2026, is his second outing in horror, following "Blood Mountain," which came out in 2023.