• Writer: Brittany Johnson
• Publisher: independently published
• Publishing year: 2021
• Number of pages: 270 (kindle)
• ISBN: 979-8532472488
• My rating: 4/5

Synopsis:

Set in the fictional town of Orson, Mississippi, Mississippi Blue follows the investigation of Mary-Lee Hastings, the six-year-old daughter of upstanding citizen and preacher, Mark Hastings, who disappears without a trace one hot summer night in June, 1969.

Detective DuBois and newly appointed Detective Carolina Waterson answer the call as the town’s secrets start coming out—and decades of fear, hatred, racism, and violence are revealed. All the while, The Thing—an unspeakable beast not of this world—waits and watches.

Enter Seth Barton, a man with a very special ability. An ability that lets him see a different side of Orson, a side he calls The Blue, only reachable by plunging himself into the deep waters of the Mississippi. He finds an unlikely partner in Detective Carolina Waterson, and together they race to defeat The Thing and rescue Mary-Lee before the town comes crumbling down around them.

Review:

Part of a read along on instagram (hosted by theindiehorrorbookclub)

Trigger warning: in this book themes such as racism, ku klux klan, child abuse and violence are tackled! All serve a purpose to tell the story!

In a place like Rorschach, novody could hear her scream, not when the Klan visited.

Rita (in Mississippi Blue by Brittany Johnson

A mixture of horror, a police detective story, a war tale and deep southern stories of racism by the Ku Klux Klan… that’s best how to describe this indie-horror debut by Brittany Johnson.

As it plays in 1969, in the south of the US (in a town called Orson which is a great name for a town and a great tribute to Welles), so racism plays a big part, also lack of women’s rights… (unfortunately 6 decades later these issues still exist, not only in the US) so I love how Brittany tackles these issues in this book and kind of gives it a twist of her own in a way that’s unbecoming to the bigots and racists (in this story)

But all this proves that the biggest, cruelest horror does not exactly come from the creatures and spectres created by writers, but is everyday horror. War, murder, religious killing, racism and what more… and this is something we get to see in this novel!

One little thing that bugged me a little (especially in the first half of the book was that it felt like Brittany had problems choosing a certain genre, mixing up different genres and changing genre after every other chapter, but eventually all comes together and there’s a finally that is nailbitingly suspenseful!

I love the characters of Seth and Carolina (she don’t take bullsh*t from anyone, that’s for sure!) and of course Samuel and Phillip!

The Blue can be considered as a Purgatory where lost souls are trapped, where a creature (once human?) lives that takes children with it. (I have been wondering if it might even be a curse by some of the black slaves, a curse left for them who hurt others?)

This is a really good tale about the mean things in life and the way to survive them, any means possible! With a good mixture of Stephen King’s It, Stranger things and some Mississippi Burning, Brittany wrote this incredible but also heartbreaking story!