Aaron Mahnke, author of the creepy and engaging The World of Lore: Dreadful Places, launched his immensely popular Lore podcast in 2015. Today he draws an audience of millions with spine-tingling stories culled from actual folklore and couched in his own historical research. Amazon Video adapted the podcast for television in 2017, and now there are three Lore books. Dreadful Places is the third and somehow even scarier than the first two.
Featuring expanded retellings of stories he's told on the podcast as well as new material, Dreadful Places hit shelves in time for Halloween, but it makes for a fascinating read throughout the year. That's because Mahnke is as much a historian as storyteller. Each chapter delves into the history of the city where the story is set, revealing odd facts and terrifying personalities. Most of the stories contain supernatural elements, but some focus on the monstrosity of ordinary human beings. In "Echoes," for example, Mahnke tells the tale of Dr. Walter Freeman, who in 1936 directed the first prefrontal lobotomy in the U.S. The doctor performed the brain procedure using an ice pick and no anesthetic on children as young as four years old. Many of those patients, we learn, died on the operating people. "Ironically," writes Mahnke, "some people still don't believe in monsters."
Mahnke's writing style balances breezy humor with rigorous research, making these stories a scary pleasure to read. Dreadful Places continues to haunt long after the last page is turned. --Amy Brady, freelance writer and editor