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The Strange Curse of Breda
It’s 1971 and a horrible murder has occurred near the town of Breda in west Michigan. A young woman, Jane Lucas, has been dragged into the woods and stabbed. The letters ZOSO from the Led Zeppelin album have been written in blood on her waist, which leads the police to think it might be a cult murder. Suspicion falls on the commune located on a farm near the town. The shock and horror townspeople feel after that murder, though, are nothing compared to the shock and horror people feel when another murder and then another murder of the same type occur.
The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants!
The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants!
215 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 21, 2018
About the author
Steven Arnett
7 books40 followersSteven Arnett was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1951 and enjoys writing fiction and poetry. He attended Michigan State University and the University of Maine. He currently lives in Luxembourg with his wife, Delphine, and daughter, Vivienne.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
August 19, 2026
The Strange Curse of Breda by Steven Arnett is a suspenseful page-turner that kept me up late last night, determined to finish. I thoroughly enjoyed this thriller, and I'm looking forward to reading more by this author. Arnett spins an exciting yarn, filled with budding relationships and a few murders to keep the reader invested.
When an innocent man, Obidiah Kurtz, is hanged for murdering his wife, he shouts out a curse to the offspring of his accusers in the town of Breda. Years later, when the murder of several townsfolk are murdered, Jim Leiden begins to put the puzzle pieces together and begins searching for the person responsible, his own life at risk.
This is a well-paced novel, with a lot of suspense and spine-chilling moments. His main character, Jim Leiden, is well developed, and as the reader walks through the case with him, they feel the emotional swings and fear he experiences, especially knowing his fiance' could be the next victim. A twisty thriller I highly recommend.
When an innocent man, Obidiah Kurtz, is hanged for murdering his wife, he shouts out a curse to the offspring of his accusers in the town of Breda. Years later, when the murder of several townsfolk are murdered, Jim Leiden begins to put the puzzle pieces together and begins searching for the person responsible, his own life at risk.
This is a well-paced novel, with a lot of suspense and spine-chilling moments. His main character, Jim Leiden, is well developed, and as the reader walks through the case with him, they feel the emotional swings and fear he experiences, especially knowing his fiance' could be the next victim. A twisty thriller I highly recommend.
September 27, 2018
Great Story. It really is a wonderful thing to find an Author that can entertain you from the first page of their story right through to the very last page. I was already a fan of Steven Arnett’s writing after reading ‘Death on Lake Michigan’ which is also a fabulous story. Besides having a great plot, the unpredictability of the story is what appealed to me.
Obadiah Kurtz didn’t stand a chance once the town folk decided he had a hand in killing his wife. It didn’t matter if he was innocent, they just wanted to see him hang for it. However, he certainly wasn’t going to go quietly, and it sent a chill down the spine of those who witnessed his death, when he put a curse on the town. No one in 1971 would have thought a curse placed by a dead main in 1851 would come back to haunt them. But that’s exactly what happened when people in the town began getting stabbed to death. All Jim wanted to do was marry his sweetheart Julie, but first he was going to have to keep her alive and try to find the killer. Especially since the law was having much luck in doing so. This is a great story that had me hooked from the beginning. A tense thriller with a few twists and turns, make this a thoroughly entertaining book.
Obadiah Kurtz didn’t stand a chance once the town folk decided he had a hand in killing his wife. It didn’t matter if he was innocent, they just wanted to see him hang for it. However, he certainly wasn’t going to go quietly, and it sent a chill down the spine of those who witnessed his death, when he put a curse on the town. No one in 1971 would have thought a curse placed by a dead main in 1851 would come back to haunt them. But that’s exactly what happened when people in the town began getting stabbed to death. All Jim wanted to do was marry his sweetheart Julie, but first he was going to have to keep her alive and try to find the killer. Especially since the law was having much luck in doing so. This is a great story that had me hooked from the beginning. A tense thriller with a few twists and turns, make this a thoroughly entertaining book.
September 2, 2018
“A deathly pestilence shall sweep over the town.”
Georgia author Steven Arnett earned his degrees from Michigan State University and the University of Maine. Born in Detroit, Michigan he currently lives in Johns Creek, Georgia. To date he has published three novels – THE LABYRINTH, WINNERS AND LOSERS, THE SUMMER OF ROBERT BYRON, DEATH ON LAKE MICHIGAN, THE SHORT STORIES OF STEVEN ARNETT, and now THE STRANGE CURSE OF BREDA.
Steven understands the importance of character building as is evident in a small excerpt from the opening of the book that introduces the mystery serving as the center of focus – February 9, 1889 It was a perfect morning for a hanging. Streaks of light pink and orange silhouetted the snow, sand hills, and pines as Sheriff Jacob Feikema, his deputy Christen Postma, the Reverend Pieter Van Riper, and the condemned man, Obadiah Kurtz, rode to the makeshift gallows that had been built the day before about a mile outside of town. None of the men spoke, and the silence was broken only by the crunch of wagon wheels in the snow. It was the coldest morning that Reverend Van Riper could remember, and he wondered whether it was just the temperature or partly the grimness of their task that made the cold seem to cut to the bone. He decided it was more than the weather. He felt as if there was a cold wind blowing through his soul. He knew that Kurtz wasn’t guilty, that he’d been railroaded to the gallows by a town that didn’t understand him, that was afraid of him, and had jumped at the chance to rid themselves of him after his wife Jessie had died mysteriously. The men were from Breda, which was founded in 1851 by Reverend Van Riper’s father-in-law, the Reverend Heinrik Wijhe, and his followers. Wijhe had left the original Dutch settlement in west Michigan after a falling out with its leader, Dr. Albertus C. Van Raalte. The falling out had to do with ideology—a disagreement about free will and atonement for sin—that led to a bitter break between the two men. Reverend Wijhe’s dark and apocalyptic vision led him to believe that even the staunchly devout Dr. Van Raalte would not escape perdition. The men remained silent as they stopped at the gallows, and Obadiah was led down from the wagon by Deputy Postma. Feikema and Postma and Van Riper were all relieved there’d been no outburst from the prisoner, no more of the ranting speeches about his innocence and the curses that were going to fall upon them. They’d heard those speeches from Obadiah more times than they could count. They were seared into their minds and their consciences…“Here today is committed a great travesty against justice,” Obadiah shouted. “For you who carry it out, I proclaim a curse on you and your children through all the generations. And to your town. Someday my sons or the sons of my sons shall come back and bring a plague to Breda. Your wives and your children and their children shall suffer death at the hands of Satan, shall curse the day they were born.”
The plot of this engrossing mystery follows: ‘It’s 1971 and a horrible murder has occurred near the town of Breda in west Michigan. A young woman, Jane Lucas, has been dragged into the woods and stabbed. The letters ZOSO from the Led Zeppelin album have been written in blood on her waist, which leads the police to think it might be a cult murder. Suspicion falls on the commune located on a farm near the town. The shock and horror townspeople feel after that murder, though, are nothing compared to the shock and horror people feel when another murder and then another murder of the same type occur. The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders together: The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to him: His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants! ‘
That hints at the fascinating story Steven brings to life. He has a fine sense of place and his pacing in excellent. Refreshingly, there is enough humor to make the story sail along. This is a fine novel for an exciting and entertaining end of summer read
Georgia author Steven Arnett earned his degrees from Michigan State University and the University of Maine. Born in Detroit, Michigan he currently lives in Johns Creek, Georgia. To date he has published three novels – THE LABYRINTH, WINNERS AND LOSERS, THE SUMMER OF ROBERT BYRON, DEATH ON LAKE MICHIGAN, THE SHORT STORIES OF STEVEN ARNETT, and now THE STRANGE CURSE OF BREDA.
Steven understands the importance of character building as is evident in a small excerpt from the opening of the book that introduces the mystery serving as the center of focus – February 9, 1889 It was a perfect morning for a hanging. Streaks of light pink and orange silhouetted the snow, sand hills, and pines as Sheriff Jacob Feikema, his deputy Christen Postma, the Reverend Pieter Van Riper, and the condemned man, Obadiah Kurtz, rode to the makeshift gallows that had been built the day before about a mile outside of town. None of the men spoke, and the silence was broken only by the crunch of wagon wheels in the snow. It was the coldest morning that Reverend Van Riper could remember, and he wondered whether it was just the temperature or partly the grimness of their task that made the cold seem to cut to the bone. He decided it was more than the weather. He felt as if there was a cold wind blowing through his soul. He knew that Kurtz wasn’t guilty, that he’d been railroaded to the gallows by a town that didn’t understand him, that was afraid of him, and had jumped at the chance to rid themselves of him after his wife Jessie had died mysteriously. The men were from Breda, which was founded in 1851 by Reverend Van Riper’s father-in-law, the Reverend Heinrik Wijhe, and his followers. Wijhe had left the original Dutch settlement in west Michigan after a falling out with its leader, Dr. Albertus C. Van Raalte. The falling out had to do with ideology—a disagreement about free will and atonement for sin—that led to a bitter break between the two men. Reverend Wijhe’s dark and apocalyptic vision led him to believe that even the staunchly devout Dr. Van Raalte would not escape perdition. The men remained silent as they stopped at the gallows, and Obadiah was led down from the wagon by Deputy Postma. Feikema and Postma and Van Riper were all relieved there’d been no outburst from the prisoner, no more of the ranting speeches about his innocence and the curses that were going to fall upon them. They’d heard those speeches from Obadiah more times than they could count. They were seared into their minds and their consciences…“Here today is committed a great travesty against justice,” Obadiah shouted. “For you who carry it out, I proclaim a curse on you and your children through all the generations. And to your town. Someday my sons or the sons of my sons shall come back and bring a plague to Breda. Your wives and your children and their children shall suffer death at the hands of Satan, shall curse the day they were born.”
The plot of this engrossing mystery follows: ‘It’s 1971 and a horrible murder has occurred near the town of Breda in west Michigan. A young woman, Jane Lucas, has been dragged into the woods and stabbed. The letters ZOSO from the Led Zeppelin album have been written in blood on her waist, which leads the police to think it might be a cult murder. Suspicion falls on the commune located on a farm near the town. The shock and horror townspeople feel after that murder, though, are nothing compared to the shock and horror people feel when another murder and then another murder of the same type occur. The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders together: The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to him: His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants! ‘
That hints at the fascinating story Steven brings to life. He has a fine sense of place and his pacing in excellent. Refreshingly, there is enough humor to make the story sail along. This is a fine novel for an exciting and entertaining end of summer read
September 8, 2018
The Strange Curse of Breda by Steven Arnett is a thoroughly enjoyable read for fans of crime novels such as myself. It has a few interesting peculiarities. Spoiler? What spoiler? We know the killer right away. The next mystery is motive. We don’t know motive right away but we know it is dark, it is going to be connected somehow to 1889 even though the murders are taking place in the 1970s, and the murderer will gradually be revealed as a psychotic nut job. With all that we know, with all the foreshadowing, how can this be a good read? Steven Arnett’s presentation makes it a page-turner that the reader will stay with for approximately 150 pages and will possibly leave the reader with a question I will add at the end of this review.
While the storytelling about a serial murderer plays out, the reader is entertained with depictions of small-town life. Towns like Breda live on the edge economically. The panic caused by an unknown killer can cause people to move away as they abandon their homes. Those who stay lock themselves inside of their homes and do not participate in the commerce that allows a store owner like Jim Leiden to make enough money to keep his store open. Readers watch as Leiden’s store becomes less of a place where trade happens and more as a center of gossip about why certain people were killed, who the killer might be, and who the next victim might be. Arnett uses the store setting to introduce tongue-in-cheek humor as some town residents gang up on the prejudiced rantings of Jack Booth. Readers can look back with nostalgia to the hippie bashings of the 1970s, the yearnings of a return to old Southern intolerant norms, and the beginnings of a political base for a candidate named Wallace. [[Digression Alert---Does any of this sound familiar? --- as in the current National Farce?]]
A stereotype buster is Sheriff Mathers. This character is developed so well as to be almost unbelievable. He is tolerant of the hippies, respects rights afforded by law, and puts up with a lot of disrespect from federal and other state law enforcement personnel. Storekeeper Leiden also is a well-developed character who introduces us to genealogy as a crime-busting tool.
The central tension for the reader is in the race between the killer and those attempting to discover his identity. Arnett keeps the tension building and the reader will turn the pages faster as the story unfolds. This is good storytelling for which I give five Amazon stars. Even meteorologists get to play an important part in this novel.
And there is the final question which I would be willing to bet several readers asked themselves. This is the unstated mystery. Is this a real case or is this a work of fiction? I feel this is akin to the Blair Witch Project in that some people will accept it as “true crime” rather than fiction. The ability to create that feeling reflects Steven Arnett’s skill as a writer and is also a reason for me to give this novel five Amazon stars.
While the storytelling about a serial murderer plays out, the reader is entertained with depictions of small-town life. Towns like Breda live on the edge economically. The panic caused by an unknown killer can cause people to move away as they abandon their homes. Those who stay lock themselves inside of their homes and do not participate in the commerce that allows a store owner like Jim Leiden to make enough money to keep his store open. Readers watch as Leiden’s store becomes less of a place where trade happens and more as a center of gossip about why certain people were killed, who the killer might be, and who the next victim might be. Arnett uses the store setting to introduce tongue-in-cheek humor as some town residents gang up on the prejudiced rantings of Jack Booth. Readers can look back with nostalgia to the hippie bashings of the 1970s, the yearnings of a return to old Southern intolerant norms, and the beginnings of a political base for a candidate named Wallace. [[Digression Alert---Does any of this sound familiar? --- as in the current National Farce?]]
A stereotype buster is Sheriff Mathers. This character is developed so well as to be almost unbelievable. He is tolerant of the hippies, respects rights afforded by law, and puts up with a lot of disrespect from federal and other state law enforcement personnel. Storekeeper Leiden also is a well-developed character who introduces us to genealogy as a crime-busting tool.
The central tension for the reader is in the race between the killer and those attempting to discover his identity. Arnett keeps the tension building and the reader will turn the pages faster as the story unfolds. This is good storytelling for which I give five Amazon stars. Even meteorologists get to play an important part in this novel.
And there is the final question which I would be willing to bet several readers asked themselves. This is the unstated mystery. Is this a real case or is this a work of fiction? I feel this is akin to the Blair Witch Project in that some people will accept it as “true crime” rather than fiction. The ability to create that feeling reflects Steven Arnett’s skill as a writer and is also a reason for me to give this novel five Amazon stars.
January 19, 2019
The Strange Curse of Breda - Written by Steven Arnett
When you don’t have any clues how far back in time do you look for them?
It’s 1971 and a horrible murder has occurred near the town of Breda in West Michigan. A young woman, Jane Lucas, has been dragged into the woods and stabbed. The letters ZOSO from the Led Zeppelin album have been written in blood on her waist, which leads the police to think it might be a cult murder. Suspicion falls on the commune located on a farm near the town. The shock and horror townspeople feel after that murder, though, are nothing compared to the shock and horror people feel when another murder and then another murder of the same type occur. The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders together: The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to him: His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants!
What did I like? This was a very interesting book and it sure kept my interest all the way through. I have actually heard of this type of thing happening in the south where the history of the area is filled with mystery and intrigue.
What will you like? The multifaceted, sophisticated, elaborate and convoluted storyline that just kept getting more involved as the pages turned. Characters that were multifarious, complicated and full of twists and turns but yet kept growing till the very end. Absolutely a great read that will keep your head down and the pages turning! I received this from the author for an honest review with no other compensation.
When you don’t have any clues how far back in time do you look for them?
It’s 1971 and a horrible murder has occurred near the town of Breda in West Michigan. A young woman, Jane Lucas, has been dragged into the woods and stabbed. The letters ZOSO from the Led Zeppelin album have been written in blood on her waist, which leads the police to think it might be a cult murder. Suspicion falls on the commune located on a farm near the town. The shock and horror townspeople feel after that murder, though, are nothing compared to the shock and horror people feel when another murder and then another murder of the same type occur. The Strange Curse of Breda is about those murders and how they are finally solved. As each murder occurs, the level of fear in Breda intensifies, to the point that the townsfolk either flee the town, arm themselves to the teeth, or fall into an almost catatonic state of fear. The county sheriff, the state police, and even the FBI are baffled. However, Jim Leiden, a young man who runs a small grocery in Breda, finds a clue that may link all the murders together: The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz that occurred in 1889. Jim researches the story and finds that the victims are descendants of the people who were responsible for hanging Obadiah. After Jim’s discovery, he’s in a race against time to try to get the police to believe him and find the murderer before he can kill the only person in the whole world who really matters to him: His beautiful fiancée Julie Veere, who happens to be one of those direct descendants!
What did I like? This was a very interesting book and it sure kept my interest all the way through. I have actually heard of this type of thing happening in the south where the history of the area is filled with mystery and intrigue.
What will you like? The multifaceted, sophisticated, elaborate and convoluted storyline that just kept getting more involved as the pages turned. Characters that were multifarious, complicated and full of twists and turns but yet kept growing till the very end. Absolutely a great read that will keep your head down and the pages turning! I received this from the author for an honest review with no other compensation.
January 1, 2019
This was an interesting read. Early in the book, the reader finds out who the killer is but the book is more about the cat and mouse game that the killer is playing with the police and FBI. Will the killer get caught or will he get away with it?
I felt drawn into this book. The way the author writes, it is easy to picture what he is conveying in the story. I couldn't help but get frustrated with the antagonist. His arrogance and reasoning left me wanting him captured and quickly.
I felt drawn into this book. The way the author writes, it is easy to picture what he is conveying in the story. I couldn't help but get frustrated with the antagonist. His arrogance and reasoning left me wanting him captured and quickly.
March 11, 2019
The Curse
The Curse of Breda is a great read. The storyline is sinister that keeps you reading well into the night.
The characters are well developed with one evil person who is hell bent on destroying the small town of Breda.
This is the first book by, Steven Arnett that I've read, and it most certainly won't be the last..
Highly recommended.
The Curse of Breda is a great read. The storyline is sinister that keeps you reading well into the night.
The characters are well developed with one evil person who is hell bent on destroying the small town of Breda.
This is the first book by, Steven Arnett that I've read, and it most certainly won't be the last..
Highly recommended.
August 27, 2024
It was a good read
The Strange Curse of Breda by Steven Arnett is a chilling thriller set in 1971 Michigan, where a series of ritualistic murders sends the town into a frenzy. As fear grips the community, Jim Leiden uncovers a link to a dark past. With suspense and historical intrigue, this novel keeps readers on edge as Jim races to save his fiancée from a deadly curse. I'd read more of his work. Check it out!
The Strange Curse of Breda by Steven Arnett is a chilling thriller set in 1971 Michigan, where a series of ritualistic murders sends the town into a frenzy. As fear grips the community, Jim Leiden uncovers a link to a dark past. With suspense and historical intrigue, this novel keeps readers on edge as Jim races to save his fiancée from a deadly curse. I'd read more of his work. Check it out!
June 26, 2026
Let me be completely upfront about something: I almost didn't pick this one up. The cover didn't scream prestige, the author wasn't a household name, and my reading pile was already threatening to collapse under its own weight. But a colleague slid a copy across the table at a conference and said, "Trust me on this one." Reader, I should have listened sooner because The Strange Curse of Breda by Steven Arnett turned out to be one of the most quietly devastating thrillers I have read in years, and I say that as someone who has been reviewing crime fiction professionally for over a decade and a half.
This is not a book that announces itself with fanfare. It doesn't open with a bombastic action sequence or a stylish first person narrator dripping with world-weary charisma. What it does instead is something far more difficult and far more effective: it builds. Slowly, deliberately, with the patience of a writer who trusts his story and trusts his reader, Arnett constructs a world so specific and so alive that when it starts to come apart, the collapse feels genuinely terrible not in a genre thriller way, but in a human way. The kind of terrible that lingers.
The story opens in 1971 in Breda, a small town in west Michigan. If you've never heard of it, that's the point. Breda is the kind of place where nothing happens where the biggest weekly gossip concerns who bought what at the hardware store, where people leave their doors unlocked, where everyone knows everyone else's business, and where that proximity breeds either deep comfort or suffocating claustrophobia depending on who you are and how long you've been there. Arnett renders this world with enormous affection and honesty, neither mocking its smallness nor idealizing it. He simply shows it to you, and lets you settle in, and then with horrifying efficiency he starts to take it apart.
A young woman named Jane Lucas is found murdered in the woods. Dragged in, stabbed, and left with four letters written in blood on her waist: ZOSO. If you know your classic rock history, you recognize that symbol immediately as Robert Plant's personal rune from the iconic Led Zeppelin IV. It's a chilling detail, and Arnett deploys it with the precision of someone who understands that the right symbol in the right context can do more psychological damage than any paragraph of prose ever could. The police conclude it might be a cult killing and suspicion immediately falls on the hippie commune operating on a farm at the edge of town. The residents of Breda are horrified. They are frightened. And then, just when they are beginning to breathe again, there is a second murder. Same method. Same signature. Then a third. And the horror that the town felt after the first killing is nothing absolutely nothing compared to what descends after that.
What separates Arnett from a lot of writers working in this genre is his understanding that the town itself is a character arguably the most important one in the book. Breda doesn't just serve as backdrop or atmosphere. It breathes, it panics, it fractures under pressure in ways that feel utterly authentic. Some residents flee entirely. Others barricade themselves inside their homes with a kind of desperate, hollow determination. A few arm themselves with guns and bravado, performing a toughness that convinces nobody, least of all themselves. And some perhaps the most haunting of all simply shut down. They go catatonic with a fear so total it has nowhere left to go. Arnett traces this communal psychological disintegration with extraordinary care and without a single false note. I've read a great deal of fiction set in small American towns, and the lazy version always gives you a monolithic community: suspicious of outsiders, united in denial, protective of its darkest secrets. Arnett is smarter and more humane than that. Breda splinters, and watching it splinter is one of the most genuinely unsettling experiences this book has to offer.
The county sheriff is doing his best and visibly failing. The state police arrive with their procedures and their quiet condescension, and make no better progress. The FBI eventually shows up, and what that arrival really means beneath the official language and the reassurances is that Breda's last illusion of institutional protection has completely dissolved. When the federal government cannot protect you, when every layer of authority has been peeled back and found wanting, what exactly are you supposed to do? The answer, it turns out, is that you start digging. You start looking backward.
Enter Jim Leiden. Jim runs a small grocery store in Breda. He is not a detective. He is not a journalist with a nose for scandal and a drawer full of press credentials. He has no particular qualification that would seem to make him suited to solving a series of ritualistic murders. What he has is a stubborn, almost compulsive need to understand, a love for his community that runs deeper than he perhaps realizes, and a fiancée named Julie Veere who he discovers, with a cold dread that radiates off the page might be exactly the type of person this killer has been looking for all along.
The moment Jim makes his central discovery is one of the most genuinely satisfying turns I have encountered in a thriller in recent memory. He finds a thread a historical thread that pulls all the way back to 1889 and links the victims together in a way no professional investigator has thought to consider. The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz. A frontier-era injustice nearly a century old, buried under enough time that the people of Breda have stopped thinking of it as an injustice at all. Stopped thinking of it as anything, really. Just one of those old stories that gets told less and less frequently until it stops being told altogether. Except, it seems, someone has not forgotten. Someone has been keeping count. And the descendants of the men responsible for Obadiah Kurtz's death are now being hunted down one by one, each killing stamped with the same four-letter signature, each death a deliberate echo of something terrible that was done and never answered for.
This is where The Strange Curse of Breda rises decisively above the genre conventions it is working within and becomes something genuinely substantial. A lot of thrillers use history as wallpaper something to paste on for a sense of atmosphere and period color. Arnett uses it as architecture. The 1889 backstory is not a gimmick. It is the moral spine of the entire novel, and it raises questions that sit with you long after the final page: What does a community owe the ghosts it has created? What happens when a wrong is buried under so many decades of silence that the people living on top of it don't even know it's there? The idea that the sins of one generation can cascade forward through time, finding their targets through blood and lineage, is one of the oldest ideas in all of literature Greek tragedy, Old Testament prophecy, Southern Gothic fiction have all worked this soil. What Arnett does is set it against the specific, restless texture of early-seventies America, with all its cultural upheaval, its distrust of authority, its Led Zeppelin records and its rural communes and its collective sense that the old order was crumbling but nobody was quite sure what would replace it. In that context, the curse feels less supernatural and more inevitable. As if the past was always going to find its way back, one way or another. As if you can only bury something for so long before it starts climbing out on its own.
Jim Leiden, as a protagonist, is someone I want to defend loudly in any conversation about underrated thriller heroes. He is exactly the kind of reluctant detective I root for not because he is charming in some self aware, genre savvy way, but because he is genuinely frightened and presses forward anyway. That combination is far harder to write convincingly than it sounds. Jim doesn't swagger. He doesn't trade quips with the detectives who dismiss him. He second-guesses himself constantly, wonders whether he has the whole thing wrong, knows the police think he's a nuisance at best and a crackpot at worst and he keeps showing up anyway, because Julie is on that list. The woman he loves is descended from the people who put Obadiah Kurtz in the ground. And Jim Leiden, grocery store owner, amateur historian, deeply ordinary man, is the only person who knows it.
Arnett's structural decisions are also worth singling out, because the pacing of this novel is a genuine achievement. He reveals the identity of the killer earlier than convention would typically dictate, and it is a bold choice that pays off enormously. Rather than building toward a revelation at the climax, Arnett invites you to watch the killer from the inside to understand his mindset, to see his actions in real time alongside the investigations of the sheriff and Jim and the resulting tension is almost unbearable in the best possible way. You know who it is. Jim and the sheriff don't. And every scene where they are circling closer while simultaneously moving in the wrong direction becomes a masterclass in controlled dramatic irony. I found myself physically tensing reading certain passages. That is not something that happens to me often, and I credit Arnett's patience and structural confidence entirely.
The supporting cast, too, deserves recognition. Arnett populates Breda with fully realized human beings rather than types. The sheriff is neither a bumbling incompetent nor a reluctant hero in disguise he is a man doing a difficult job with limited resources and the growing, nauseating sense that he is out of his depth. Julie Veere is warm and vivid, not simply a damsel in narrative peril but a person you genuinely want to see survive. The townspeople who orbit the central action feel pulled from a real community rather than assembled from a catalogue of small-town stereotypes, and Arnett's attention to authentic detail the accents he renders with specificity rather than condescension, the texture of daily life in early seventies small town Michigan, the ways people talk to each other when they are afraid gives the whole novel a sense of grounded reality that makes the horror all the more effective.
There is so much genre fiction in the world, and so much of it is perfectly competent and utterly forgettable. The Strange Curse of Breda is neither. It is the work of a writer who genuinely cares about his characters and his town and his story, who understands that real suspense is built on emotional investment rather than plot mechanics, and who is willing to take his time and trust his reader. It is the kind of book that makes you want to call whoever recommended it and thank them properly. It is the kind of book that reminds you why you fell in love with reading thrillers in the first place not for the twists, not for the body count, but for that specific electricity of a well told story pulling you through the night, past the hour when you should have gone to bed, past the point of no return, all the way to the last page and then immediately into that particular and wonderful regret of having nothing left to read.
I will be reading everything else Steven Arnett has written. And I will be recommending The Strange Curse of Breda to every reader I know who has even a passing tolerance for suspense, history, small town atmosphere, or the enduring and deeply human question of what we owe the dead.
This is not a book that announces itself with fanfare. It doesn't open with a bombastic action sequence or a stylish first person narrator dripping with world-weary charisma. What it does instead is something far more difficult and far more effective: it builds. Slowly, deliberately, with the patience of a writer who trusts his story and trusts his reader, Arnett constructs a world so specific and so alive that when it starts to come apart, the collapse feels genuinely terrible not in a genre thriller way, but in a human way. The kind of terrible that lingers.
The story opens in 1971 in Breda, a small town in west Michigan. If you've never heard of it, that's the point. Breda is the kind of place where nothing happens where the biggest weekly gossip concerns who bought what at the hardware store, where people leave their doors unlocked, where everyone knows everyone else's business, and where that proximity breeds either deep comfort or suffocating claustrophobia depending on who you are and how long you've been there. Arnett renders this world with enormous affection and honesty, neither mocking its smallness nor idealizing it. He simply shows it to you, and lets you settle in, and then with horrifying efficiency he starts to take it apart.
A young woman named Jane Lucas is found murdered in the woods. Dragged in, stabbed, and left with four letters written in blood on her waist: ZOSO. If you know your classic rock history, you recognize that symbol immediately as Robert Plant's personal rune from the iconic Led Zeppelin IV. It's a chilling detail, and Arnett deploys it with the precision of someone who understands that the right symbol in the right context can do more psychological damage than any paragraph of prose ever could. The police conclude it might be a cult killing and suspicion immediately falls on the hippie commune operating on a farm at the edge of town. The residents of Breda are horrified. They are frightened. And then, just when they are beginning to breathe again, there is a second murder. Same method. Same signature. Then a third. And the horror that the town felt after the first killing is nothing absolutely nothing compared to what descends after that.
What separates Arnett from a lot of writers working in this genre is his understanding that the town itself is a character arguably the most important one in the book. Breda doesn't just serve as backdrop or atmosphere. It breathes, it panics, it fractures under pressure in ways that feel utterly authentic. Some residents flee entirely. Others barricade themselves inside their homes with a kind of desperate, hollow determination. A few arm themselves with guns and bravado, performing a toughness that convinces nobody, least of all themselves. And some perhaps the most haunting of all simply shut down. They go catatonic with a fear so total it has nowhere left to go. Arnett traces this communal psychological disintegration with extraordinary care and without a single false note. I've read a great deal of fiction set in small American towns, and the lazy version always gives you a monolithic community: suspicious of outsiders, united in denial, protective of its darkest secrets. Arnett is smarter and more humane than that. Breda splinters, and watching it splinter is one of the most genuinely unsettling experiences this book has to offer.
The county sheriff is doing his best and visibly failing. The state police arrive with their procedures and their quiet condescension, and make no better progress. The FBI eventually shows up, and what that arrival really means beneath the official language and the reassurances is that Breda's last illusion of institutional protection has completely dissolved. When the federal government cannot protect you, when every layer of authority has been peeled back and found wanting, what exactly are you supposed to do? The answer, it turns out, is that you start digging. You start looking backward.
Enter Jim Leiden. Jim runs a small grocery store in Breda. He is not a detective. He is not a journalist with a nose for scandal and a drawer full of press credentials. He has no particular qualification that would seem to make him suited to solving a series of ritualistic murders. What he has is a stubborn, almost compulsive need to understand, a love for his community that runs deeper than he perhaps realizes, and a fiancée named Julie Veere who he discovers, with a cold dread that radiates off the page might be exactly the type of person this killer has been looking for all along.
The moment Jim makes his central discovery is one of the most genuinely satisfying turns I have encountered in a thriller in recent memory. He finds a thread a historical thread that pulls all the way back to 1889 and links the victims together in a way no professional investigator has thought to consider. The hanging of a man named Obadiah Kurtz. A frontier-era injustice nearly a century old, buried under enough time that the people of Breda have stopped thinking of it as an injustice at all. Stopped thinking of it as anything, really. Just one of those old stories that gets told less and less frequently until it stops being told altogether. Except, it seems, someone has not forgotten. Someone has been keeping count. And the descendants of the men responsible for Obadiah Kurtz's death are now being hunted down one by one, each killing stamped with the same four-letter signature, each death a deliberate echo of something terrible that was done and never answered for.
This is where The Strange Curse of Breda rises decisively above the genre conventions it is working within and becomes something genuinely substantial. A lot of thrillers use history as wallpaper something to paste on for a sense of atmosphere and period color. Arnett uses it as architecture. The 1889 backstory is not a gimmick. It is the moral spine of the entire novel, and it raises questions that sit with you long after the final page: What does a community owe the ghosts it has created? What happens when a wrong is buried under so many decades of silence that the people living on top of it don't even know it's there? The idea that the sins of one generation can cascade forward through time, finding their targets through blood and lineage, is one of the oldest ideas in all of literature Greek tragedy, Old Testament prophecy, Southern Gothic fiction have all worked this soil. What Arnett does is set it against the specific, restless texture of early-seventies America, with all its cultural upheaval, its distrust of authority, its Led Zeppelin records and its rural communes and its collective sense that the old order was crumbling but nobody was quite sure what would replace it. In that context, the curse feels less supernatural and more inevitable. As if the past was always going to find its way back, one way or another. As if you can only bury something for so long before it starts climbing out on its own.
Jim Leiden, as a protagonist, is someone I want to defend loudly in any conversation about underrated thriller heroes. He is exactly the kind of reluctant detective I root for not because he is charming in some self aware, genre savvy way, but because he is genuinely frightened and presses forward anyway. That combination is far harder to write convincingly than it sounds. Jim doesn't swagger. He doesn't trade quips with the detectives who dismiss him. He second-guesses himself constantly, wonders whether he has the whole thing wrong, knows the police think he's a nuisance at best and a crackpot at worst and he keeps showing up anyway, because Julie is on that list. The woman he loves is descended from the people who put Obadiah Kurtz in the ground. And Jim Leiden, grocery store owner, amateur historian, deeply ordinary man, is the only person who knows it.
Arnett's structural decisions are also worth singling out, because the pacing of this novel is a genuine achievement. He reveals the identity of the killer earlier than convention would typically dictate, and it is a bold choice that pays off enormously. Rather than building toward a revelation at the climax, Arnett invites you to watch the killer from the inside to understand his mindset, to see his actions in real time alongside the investigations of the sheriff and Jim and the resulting tension is almost unbearable in the best possible way. You know who it is. Jim and the sheriff don't. And every scene where they are circling closer while simultaneously moving in the wrong direction becomes a masterclass in controlled dramatic irony. I found myself physically tensing reading certain passages. That is not something that happens to me often, and I credit Arnett's patience and structural confidence entirely.
The supporting cast, too, deserves recognition. Arnett populates Breda with fully realized human beings rather than types. The sheriff is neither a bumbling incompetent nor a reluctant hero in disguise he is a man doing a difficult job with limited resources and the growing, nauseating sense that he is out of his depth. Julie Veere is warm and vivid, not simply a damsel in narrative peril but a person you genuinely want to see survive. The townspeople who orbit the central action feel pulled from a real community rather than assembled from a catalogue of small-town stereotypes, and Arnett's attention to authentic detail the accents he renders with specificity rather than condescension, the texture of daily life in early seventies small town Michigan, the ways people talk to each other when they are afraid gives the whole novel a sense of grounded reality that makes the horror all the more effective.
There is so much genre fiction in the world, and so much of it is perfectly competent and utterly forgettable. The Strange Curse of Breda is neither. It is the work of a writer who genuinely cares about his characters and his town and his story, who understands that real suspense is built on emotional investment rather than plot mechanics, and who is willing to take his time and trust his reader. It is the kind of book that makes you want to call whoever recommended it and thank them properly. It is the kind of book that reminds you why you fell in love with reading thrillers in the first place not for the twists, not for the body count, but for that specific electricity of a well told story pulling you through the night, past the hour when you should have gone to bed, past the point of no return, all the way to the last page and then immediately into that particular and wonderful regret of having nothing left to read.
I will be reading everything else Steven Arnett has written. And I will be recommending The Strange Curse of Breda to every reader I know who has even a passing tolerance for suspense, history, small town atmosphere, or the enduring and deeply human question of what we owe the dead.
September 16, 2024
Suspenseful!
I found this book to be well-written and full of suspense. It becomes a page-turner when the author allows you to know who the killer is early on and know his mindset. Following the killer on the quest for his next victim leaves you on the edge of your seat wanting to alert the intended victim of the impending danger! It becomes a race against the clock as the killer is identified and caught before he carries out his plans for his next kill. I was a little disappointed with the method of exit with the killer, but to say more would be a spoiler, so we'll leave it at that. All in all it was a quick enjoyable read!
I found this book to be well-written and full of suspense. It becomes a page-turner when the author allows you to know who the killer is early on and know his mindset. Following the killer on the quest for his next victim leaves you on the edge of your seat wanting to alert the intended victim of the impending danger! It becomes a race against the clock as the killer is identified and caught before he carries out his plans for his next kill. I was a little disappointed with the method of exit with the killer, but to say more would be a spoiler, so we'll leave it at that. All in all it was a quick enjoyable read!
February 28, 2023
This was a gripping and gritty, page turning thriller of revenge. A miscarriage of justice in 1880’s is passed down through generations to a man determined to seek revenge on the descendants of those responsible. Murders begin happening in Breda. No one is safe and one by one, they are being targeted.
A local resident, Jim, starts to piece together clues to help the police. But will they find the killer in time?
This is a great, captivating read. It was shocking in the right places and the characters were intriguing. A recommended thriller for someone wanting something a bit more unique.
A local resident, Jim, starts to piece together clues to help the police. But will they find the killer in time?
This is a great, captivating read. It was shocking in the right places and the characters were intriguing. A recommended thriller for someone wanting something a bit more unique.
September 22, 2025
Steven Arnett’s "The Strange Curse of Breda" is a chilling, meticulously plotted tale of fear, vengeance, and small-town terror. The novel opens in 1889 with the haunting hanging of Obadiah Kurtz, whose fiery curse sets a malevolent tone that echoes across generations. Fast forward to 1971, and Breda is shaken by a series of brutal murders, each linked to the descendants of those who executed Kurtz. The town’s escalating panic creates an atmosphere of palpable dread. At the center, Jim Leiden uncovers the historical link, racing to protect his fiancée, Julie Veere, while unraveling a dark mystery rooted in the town’s past. Arnett’s deft blend of historical detail, psychological tension, and suspenseful thriller pacing keeps the reader gripped from the gallows to the present-day terror.
Arnett's characters are vividly rendered, from the steadfast, ethically grounded Jim Leiden to the terrified townspeople, the pretentious Jack Booth, and the tragic Obadiah Kurtz. The narrative flawlessly blends 19th-century history with 1970s social tensions giving Breda the feel of a town trapped by superstition and memory. The pacing strikes a balance between historical information and thriller action, and the interplay of Kurtz's curse with the contemporary killings keeps readers interested in both the "why" and the "who."
More than a murder mystery, The Strange Curse of Breda is a gripping investigation of how the past haunts the present, with vivid descriptions, clever plotting, and a terrifying feeling of place that stays long beyond the final page.
Arnett's characters are vividly rendered, from the steadfast, ethically grounded Jim Leiden to the terrified townspeople, the pretentious Jack Booth, and the tragic Obadiah Kurtz. The narrative flawlessly blends 19th-century history with 1970s social tensions giving Breda the feel of a town trapped by superstition and memory. The pacing strikes a balance between historical information and thriller action, and the interplay of Kurtz's curse with the contemporary killings keeps readers interested in both the "why" and the "who."
More than a murder mystery, The Strange Curse of Breda is a gripping investigation of how the past haunts the present, with vivid descriptions, clever plotting, and a terrifying feeling of place that stays long beyond the final page.
September 13, 2018
THE STRANGE CURSE OF BREDA BY STEVEN ARNETT is a thrill a page mystery. We have, in this novel, a deranged serial killer who has taken an old curse and turned it into a killing spree. I found this book so engaging I stayed up into the wee hours of the night getting it read. It has a breakneck pace that keeps the reader flipping thru the book wanting to see what happens next. The setting for the book is perfect: small town where everyone knows each others business, finds themselves dealing with a serial killer . Everyones lives are impacted but this killing from the sheriff investigating the murders to the corner hardware store owner.
Living in a small village I understand the dynamics of the city of Breda , we all know each other, and when an event happens the whole town is affected. Breda will never be the same. The murders have taken the town and turned it inside out. No one trusts anyone, no one goes out to businesses and the town and its people are changed forever. An excellent novel for anyone who loves the thrill ride of a good mystery/thriller.
I recieved this book free from goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
Living in a small village I understand the dynamics of the city of Breda , we all know each other, and when an event happens the whole town is affected. Breda will never be the same. The murders have taken the town and turned it inside out. No one trusts anyone, no one goes out to businesses and the town and its people are changed forever. An excellent novel for anyone who loves the thrill ride of a good mystery/thriller.
I recieved this book free from goodreads in exchange for an honest review.
November 2, 2022
Steven Arnett author of Death on Lake Michigan once more proves his undeniable talent for writing thriller novels. His novel The Curse of Breda is another astonishing thriller novel devoted to “serial killing “.
Incorporating two plots inside story and mixing far away past and present time is marvellously done.
Story: In small quiet community suddenly happens homicide which turns inside serial killing. How residents of Breda will feel and react on fear for own and loved one safety and this unimaginable and devastating realisation that their small quiet community is not safe place for living, anymore. What killer think inside his head while witnessing fear of residents, their confusion and uncertainty about living in Breda. What is going in killer’s head/brain and how he feels about killing? How mystery of serial killing will be resolved? How far away in past and how many generations will Jim have to research to find a killer? Will he manage to save his love life Julie and have happy ending?
Anretts’ books are strongly characterised by Arnett understanding of human psychology.
I am fan of his novels/writing.
Incorporating two plots inside story and mixing far away past and present time is marvellously done.
Story: In small quiet community suddenly happens homicide which turns inside serial killing. How residents of Breda will feel and react on fear for own and loved one safety and this unimaginable and devastating realisation that their small quiet community is not safe place for living, anymore. What killer think inside his head while witnessing fear of residents, their confusion and uncertainty about living in Breda. What is going in killer’s head/brain and how he feels about killing? How mystery of serial killing will be resolved? How far away in past and how many generations will Jim have to research to find a killer? Will he manage to save his love life Julie and have happy ending?
Anretts’ books are strongly characterised by Arnett understanding of human psychology.
I am fan of his novels/writing.
October 4, 2018
Breda, Michigan is a small town that was cursed a long time ago. Nothing has ever happened in this small town where everyone knows each other until recently. Murders start causing residents to fear for their lives. Is this from that curse or something else?
Jim Leiden is the main character in this puzzling murder mystery. With each page the suspense builds as the plot thickens. Multiple law enforcement agencies become involved. This Breda Murders gets national attention
This is one of those books that’s starts out good. Suddenly it’s a page turner you don’t want to put down. The characters are well defined. The author really puts a lot of effort into establishing his characters to the point he actually adds the appropriate accent when necessary. A southern accent has Ah for I.
This is a captivating story that continually builds. It’s impossible to figure out where this story will go as you read it. I really enjoyed the suspense building aspect. It creeps up on you. Complex plot which is so well written it’s an easy read.
Jim Leiden is the main character in this puzzling murder mystery. With each page the suspense builds as the plot thickens. Multiple law enforcement agencies become involved. This Breda Murders gets national attention
This is one of those books that’s starts out good. Suddenly it’s a page turner you don’t want to put down. The characters are well defined. The author really puts a lot of effort into establishing his characters to the point he actually adds the appropriate accent when necessary. A southern accent has Ah for I.
This is a captivating story that continually builds. It’s impossible to figure out where this story will go as you read it. I really enjoyed the suspense building aspect. It creeps up on you. Complex plot which is so well written it’s an easy read.
October 5, 2018
I actually didn’t read this book. I received an offer to read and review it through Voracious Readers, but after several attempts to have the author send it, I was left without. The author actually went MIA on Voracious Readers and none of the reader requests were honoured.
Therefore my rating isn’t on the book but on the author. One doesn’t join a group like Voracious Readers and then not follow through by sending books out to be reviewed. Authors are there to get their work noticed and to create conversation about what they’ve written. No all reviews will be good, but not all reviewers will find the style of writing or content to their liking. All that can be assumed by this is that the author was afraid of bad reviews and not confident in the quality of his work.
I will now never read anything that he writes.
Therefore my rating isn’t on the book but on the author. One doesn’t join a group like Voracious Readers and then not follow through by sending books out to be reviewed. Authors are there to get their work noticed and to create conversation about what they’ve written. No all reviews will be good, but not all reviewers will find the style of writing or content to their liking. All that can be assumed by this is that the author was afraid of bad reviews and not confident in the quality of his work.
I will now never read anything that he writes.
February 6, 2026
“The Strange Curse of Breda” by Steven Arnett begins with the hanging of an innocent man in 1889 in Breda, a small town in Michigan. The condemned man, Mr. Kurtz, declares that upon his death, a curse will be placed upon those present. In 1971, Jane Lucas is brutally murdered in a style reminiscent of the Manson family killings, placing suspicion upon a local commune. Other, similar murders follow. This is a taut, suspenseful, and gritty tale of a demented serial killer and the investigation of crimes that terrify the people of Breda. Jim, who runs the local store, decides to look into a possible connection between the hanging in 1889 and the current murders. He is chilled to discover that his girlfriend is a descendant of one of the men present at the execution. This book is a great choice for fans of crime fiction and suspense!
September 12, 2018
"The Truth Behind A Serial Killer"
In 1971, near the town of Breda, Michigan, a young woman, Jane Lucas, is dragged into the woods and stabbed to death. The letters ZOSO were written in blood on her waist. Could the cult commune on a nearby farm be responsible? Murders start to build up. Fear rapidly grows in Breda as the local police, state police, and even the FBI are baffled. But then the local young man who owns the grocery store finds a clue that will link the murders together back to 1889. This novel has a great story line, and the story is spellbinding and haunting. I didn't want to put the novel down. However, I found the story needs better proofreading and shorter chapters to help readers move faster through the mystery.
In 1971, near the town of Breda, Michigan, a young woman, Jane Lucas, is dragged into the woods and stabbed to death. The letters ZOSO were written in blood on her waist. Could the cult commune on a nearby farm be responsible? Murders start to build up. Fear rapidly grows in Breda as the local police, state police, and even the FBI are baffled. But then the local young man who owns the grocery store finds a clue that will link the murders together back to 1889. This novel has a great story line, and the story is spellbinding and haunting. I didn't want to put the novel down. However, I found the story needs better proofreading and shorter chapters to help readers move faster through the mystery.
September 12, 2023
“The Strange Curse of Breda" is a gripping and suspenseful murder mystery set against the backdrop of a small town's growing fear.
Author masterfully paints a vivid picture of the town's descent into chaos, where people are forced to choose between fleeing, arming themselves, or succumbing to paralyzing fear.
What sets "The Strange Curse of Breda" apart is its skillful blending of historical elements with a contemporary murder mystery. The author seamlessly weaves together the past and present, exploring themes of vengeance, the long-reaching consequences of history, and the resilience of human spirit in the face of terror.
If you're a fan of murder mysteries with a historical twist and complex characters, this book is a must-read.
Author masterfully paints a vivid picture of the town's descent into chaos, where people are forced to choose between fleeing, arming themselves, or succumbing to paralyzing fear.
What sets "The Strange Curse of Breda" apart is its skillful blending of historical elements with a contemporary murder mystery. The author seamlessly weaves together the past and present, exploring themes of vengeance, the long-reaching consequences of history, and the resilience of human spirit in the face of terror.
If you're a fan of murder mysteries with a historical twist and complex characters, this book is a must-read.
September 10, 2018
This new book by Steven Arnett, The Strange Curse of Breda, contains a wonderful premise for a novel, but the actual book fails in characters and setting. The story begins in 1889 with the conviction and hanging of Obadiah Kurtz for the murder of his wife. Obadiah roars out a curse for the town of Breda as his accusers prepare to hang him. The story jumps to 1971 in Breda, Michigan, where a vicious murder happens. Before long, other murders happen and force the townspeople into fear. Arnett catches a little of the town's atmosphere, but the characters and setting remain lackluster. The story contains too much dialogue and hides any psychological analysis of the events.
September 12, 2018
"Another tense and engaging read"
This writer has a style that is so easy to read. Many serial killer books are overly graphic and only a handful of characters are given much more than a thumbnail sketch. The more sensational the murders can be made the better. Here, there is a full cast of recognisable characters. The story moves inexorably with pace while the townsfolk try to carry on with their lives despite the curse made eighty years ago. The killer will be stopped... but will it be in time to save the characters we have come to like?
This writer has a style that is so easy to read. Many serial killer books are overly graphic and only a handful of characters are given much more than a thumbnail sketch. The more sensational the murders can be made the better. Here, there is a full cast of recognisable characters. The story moves inexorably with pace while the townsfolk try to carry on with their lives despite the curse made eighty years ago. The killer will be stopped... but will it be in time to save the characters we have come to like?
January 31, 2019
Another Great Mystery
I first read Arnett's work with Death on Lake Michigan and now, I got to enjoy The Strange Curse of Breda. Again, we are in Michigan, and flashing back to the seventies (the 1970s) with a horrendous murder that needs to be solved. It's a mystifying sleuth/detective story that is filled with suspense and the images and culture of the times. I love the way Arnett pens his stories, with twists and those things that you never see coming. Another great mystery. Well-done and well-written. I will definitely read more of Arnett's work.
I first read Arnett's work with Death on Lake Michigan and now, I got to enjoy The Strange Curse of Breda. Again, we are in Michigan, and flashing back to the seventies (the 1970s) with a horrendous murder that needs to be solved. It's a mystifying sleuth/detective story that is filled with suspense and the images and culture of the times. I love the way Arnett pens his stories, with twists and those things that you never see coming. Another great mystery. Well-done and well-written. I will definitely read more of Arnett's work.
May 21, 2020
A serial killer because stalking residents in a small town, causing the rest to live in fear. Is it related to an old curse, from the wrongful execution of a man several generations ago?
This is a very good thriller, and I didn't want to put it down. The action is well paced, and not bogged down by heavy narration. The level of fear and tension increases with each chapter, and it is almost tangible coming off the pages in waves. Great characters and they all work well with the story. If you like thrillers, you'll find this to be an engaging read.
This is a very good thriller, and I didn't want to put it down. The action is well paced, and not bogged down by heavy narration. The level of fear and tension increases with each chapter, and it is almost tangible coming off the pages in waves. Great characters and they all work well with the story. If you like thrillers, you'll find this to be an engaging read.
August 29, 2024
Amazing!
I devoured this thriller in one weekend, and it's a must-read for fans of suspenseful stories!
Steven Arnett's masterful storytelling weaves together edge-of-your-seat scenes, vivid settings, and believable characters, making it impossible to put down. With its unique blend of tension, twists, and a Columbo-style killer reveal, this book will keep you guessing until the very end.
Whether you're a fan of thrillers or just looking for a gripping page-turner, this novel delivers - its suspenseful scenes, particularly between the serial killer and Jim, will leave you breathless and eager for more.
I devoured this thriller in one weekend, and it's a must-read for fans of suspenseful stories!
Steven Arnett's masterful storytelling weaves together edge-of-your-seat scenes, vivid settings, and believable characters, making it impossible to put down. With its unique blend of tension, twists, and a Columbo-style killer reveal, this book will keep you guessing until the very end.
Whether you're a fan of thrillers or just looking for a gripping page-turner, this novel delivers - its suspenseful scenes, particularly between the serial killer and Jim, will leave you breathless and eager for more.
November 27, 2018
Excellent, Unusual Thriller
This is a captivating, suspenseful novel with detailed portraits of the various individuals involved in the story...as well as an absorbing portrait of the small town at the heart of this mystery. The past events, the present action, the sensitive descriptions of the characters' interactions...all make for wonderful reading. This is a novel I highly recommend.
This is a captivating, suspenseful novel with detailed portraits of the various individuals involved in the story...as well as an absorbing portrait of the small town at the heart of this mystery. The past events, the present action, the sensitive descriptions of the characters' interactions...all make for wonderful reading. This is a novel I highly recommend.
February 26, 2019
This ended up being one of your more slower mystery/suspense/crime books; and you get inside the mind of the killer. As well as the cop that ends up investigating the crimes that took place in the small town of Breda, there are also one or two other characters that help with the investigation. I most certainly plan on reading more of this author's books, and got a copy in exchange for an honest review.
March 7, 2019
Fascinating murder mystery that left me sad it ended so quickly
This is my first reading by Mr. Arnett and I fully enjoyed it. Thinking by the title it was more a tale of horror than a murder mystery, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a true psychological murder mystery. The last few chapters had me so captivated that I could not put it down until I found out how it ended. A wonderful and entertaining read that has me wanting more of the author's work.
This is my first reading by Mr. Arnett and I fully enjoyed it. Thinking by the title it was more a tale of horror than a murder mystery, I was pleasantly surprised that it was a true psychological murder mystery. The last few chapters had me so captivated that I could not put it down until I found out how it ended. A wonderful and entertaining read that has me wanting more of the author's work.
September 3, 2018
Is the past coming back to haunt the small town of Breda, Michigan? A serial killer is picking off the town's residents. At first, the murders seem to be random, but are they? And, who is responsible? Steven Arnett's novel is full of twists and turns that keep the reader engaged. It is a quick read that anyone looking for a good thriller will enjoy.
September 3, 2018
A “page turner”!
I had difficulty stopping so I turned the pages looking for the next murder or for the murderer. The plot permitted me to participate in the solution by revealing a rational theory early on. This author has the skill to continue to entertain us by writing more thrillers.
I had difficulty stopping so I turned the pages looking for the next murder or for the murderer. The plot permitted me to participate in the solution by revealing a rational theory early on. This author has the skill to continue to entertain us by writing more thrillers.
September 9, 2018
Excellent plot!
I was on the edge of my seat several times while reading, and stayed up all night to finish. I just couldn't put the book down! There are some issues with the Kindle formatting that made it a little clumsy in chapter breaks (they look exactly like a regular paragraph break), but an overall good read.
I was on the edge of my seat several times while reading, and stayed up all night to finish. I just couldn't put the book down! There are some issues with the Kindle formatting that made it a little clumsy in chapter breaks (they look exactly like a regular paragraph break), but an overall good read.
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