The First Cuts Are the Deepest

by Nick Wilgus

When the body of a seven year old boy is found dumped in a ditch, the sleepy town of Port Moss, Mississippi realizes a monster walks among them. And as the long, hot summer wears on and the bodies pile up, secrets the town hoped to bury and forget are brought painfully back to life. From the award-winning author of MINDFULNESS AND MURDER comes a tale of psychological horror that will linger long after the last page is turned.

221 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 26, 2018

About the author

I sold my first short story to The Horror Show Magazine at the age of seventeen and I've been writing ever since. An award-winning movie was based on my first novel, MINDFULNESS AND MURDER, and I was also nominated for a Lambda Award.

A former newspaper editor and author of more than a dozen novels and two screenplays, I currently live in Tupelo, Mississippi right down the street from the house where Elvis grew up..

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dark? Mercy, yes. This is not a story for the faint of heart. But if you can manage it, you'll find a heart-breaking story about the ways that the sins of the past can come home to roost in the relative innocence of the present. Horrible harm was done to a person during their childhood, and after a non-too-pleasant growing up, the harmed decides to make the ones who harmed pay. And pay big.

I enjoyed this book, but I had to take a moment and re-orient myself early on to the kind of horrors I was beginning to run into. I can read horror and enjoy it (I love Thomas Harris's first books), but I have to be in the right frame of mind. When I started "First Cuts" I was not in the proper mindframe, so I had to back up and recalibrate my expectations. That done, I admit that I devoured the book. You can tell by the evidence that I finished it in two days.

Like the worst tragedies, it's hard to look away from.

Bravo to Nick for writing this story: The writing, itself, had to hurt. But you turned out a top-notch horror.

P.S. It's also at least a hard R. Don't put it on the children's library shelves. :D

[betty c. spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wilderness of a broken soul

A story of visceral torment and terror inflicted on old and young to repay a sin so vile as to warrant murder. I hurt for the victims as well as for the villain. I did not sleep well for nights. The book is finished, but the tale lingers on.

[Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting murder mystery

I like that you don't have to wait until the end to know who did it. You get to know what's going on in the murderers mind, as well as everyone else. Keeps your attention.