The premise is something out of a wacky dream, one that jolts the sleeper awake with a racing heart and sweaty palms: you're trapped in a mammoth furniture store after closing when all the lights go out, and you're unable to find your way in the maze of home furnishings and storage solutions. And then creepy things start happening....
In Horrorstör, Grady Hendrix's debut novel, the nightmare happens in the Cleveland, Ohio, Orsk furniture super-store. The retail giant was built on the ruins of the old Cuyahoga Panopticon, a grisly prison where the warden believed nonstop surveillance would rehabilitate criminals.
Each morning, the Orsk employees arrive to find bizarre damage: the employee entrance is broken, the escalator is running in reverse, merchandise is smashed. Workers receive text messages from an unknown caller, simply reading "help." Basil, the deputy store manager, is determined to solve the mystery of the nightly vandalism. He recruits Amy and Ruth Anne to work an overnight shift with him during which they'll make regular rounds of the store in hopes of nabbing the culprit before he or she can strike again.
Hendrix's thriller parody offers social commentary on retail structure in a satirically humorous tone. Horrorstör is bound like an IKEA catalogue, each chapter is titled after a piece of creatively named furniture and accompanied by an image of the flat-pack item, and a store map provides directions on how to visit Orsk's labyrinthine showroom. In the vein of a classic Scooby-Doo ghost story but set inside a modern retail environment, Hendrix's nightmare is wildly fun and outrageously inventive. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts