The Angel of Indian Lake: An Overstuffed and Utterly Unstoppable Final Chapter In Stephen Graham Jones’s Epic Horror Trilogy 

Trilogies come with their own specific sets of pressures, and horror trilogies are perhaps more stressful than most. After all, as everyone who’s seen Scream already knows, there are rules to these things, and likely more than usual when you’re talking about bringing something like Stephen Graham Jones’s bestselling Indian Lake trilogy to an end. Previous installments My Heart Is a Chainsaw and Don’t Fear the Reaper were huge critical and commercial hits, recontextualizing the literary horror genre for a new audience and packing tons of carnage in alongside a thoughtful exploration of trauma and loss. Now, with The Angel of Indian Lake, Jones attempts to bring his sprawling, bloody story to a satisfactory end—and mostly succeeds.  And although there are moments where his large narrative sags a bit under the weight of its own self-referential hubris, its central character is more than strong enough to drag its proverbial body over the finish line. 

A love letter to the slasher genre that’s one part history lesson and one part rumination on class in America, all tapped off with a determinedly feminist reexamination of the concept of the Final Girl, Jones’s trilogy has a lot more than jump scares and stabbings to recommend it. This is complex horror done right, a story that’s as much about the monsters in our heads as the ones lurking in the woods with a hockey mask. (Though, to be fair, both kinds play significant roles in this story.) The Angel of Indian Lake takes everything readers loved about the first two books in the trilogy and cranks it all up to eleven, cramming its 400+ pages with even more callbacks, red herrings, pop culture references, and creatively minded killings than ever before. 

The story begins eight years after the events of My Heart is a Chainsaw, when then 17-year-old slasher movie enthusiast Jade Daniels survived the gruesome carnage that her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho now refers to as the Independence Day Massacre. Older and presumably somewhat wiser, Jade’s got it together now—mostly. She’s in therapy, she’s got meds, and a fairly stable life plan—thanks to what appears to be the near-constant intercession of her pushy BFF and fellow Proofrock survivor Letha Mondragon-Thompkins. In a sort of backhanded compliment to the instructor whose extra credit assignments she used to complete with slasher essays, she’s now the history teacher in the same school she once attended. And she’s working on finding healthier ways to navigate her lingering trauma and PTSD (or at least ones that aren’t horror movie-based). 

But, unfortunately, this is Proofrock, and Halloween is approaching, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that another massacre is about to go down, and Jade is the only person who can stop it. And when one of her students goes missing and the bodies start piling up again, she finds herself at the center of another mystery that seems uncannily tied to both her life specifically and the larger history of the town she can’t get out of her blood. What follows is a story of murder, mayhem, real estate speculation, missing teens, historical secrets, and ghosts both literal and figurative. It’s almost impossible to talk about this book in a substantial way without spoiling things that are best left for readers to discover on their own, but it’s fair to say that plenty of taboos are broken, rules discarded, favorites threatened, and twists revealed throughout. 

Jones’s finale has to serve a lot of masters: It must tie up multiple loose ends from previous books, solve another gruesome series of killings, and bring Jade’s emotional arc to a satisfying conclusion. And it mostly succeeds, although there are certainly moments where there’s so much going on—Creative new deaths! Rapid-fire movie references! The surprise returns of supporting characters from previous books! Proofrock history! Recaps of past violence! Forest fires! Literal hordes of rampaging wild animals!—the story can feel overwhelming and difficult to keep track of. Jones also leans heavily on readers’ familiarity with his previous novels. This being the final act of a trilogy, that makes a certain amount of sense, but the book also offers little in the way of reminders or refreshers about the events that have come before, so if you haven’t read the other books in this series in a bit, maybe give yourself a little refresher before diving in. 

Though the story features a significant body count and twists enough to make figuring out who the ultimate culprit(s) behind the killings a challenge, The Angel of Indian Lake—much like this trilogy as a whole—is really about Jade’s emotional journey. She began this story as an anxious teen who used her love of horror cinema to shield herself from the world (and people) around her, convinced that she could never be the strong, stereotypical Final Girl she’s completely convinced women like Letha and several other Proofrock residents are. But her behavior tells a different story—one of a selfless leader who’s sacrified herself in so many ways, from her physical body and literal freedom to her precarious mental state and her standing amongst the residents of the town she’s loved for so long. She’s the hero she’s been waiting for, and it’s so very satisfying to watch her finally begin to realize that for herself after so much time—and reimagine the very concept of what it means to be a Final Girl along the way. 

The Angel of Indian Lake is available now wherever books are sold. 

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB