There isn't a special scene in 'The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre' to match the one that erupted off the page in 'Boys in the Valley', but it's a more consistent ride that builds neatly in intensity as it goes. Of course, I have to note that, after a setting packed with young boys, Philip Fracassi shifted to one with old people. As much as I liked that book, I like this one more because it has more room to breathe, which it does well, and, perhaps inevitably, vary its ensemble cast a bit more. The boys in 'Boys of the Valley' were distinct but fell easily into one of two categories, good or bad. The old folk here, because they've already lived lives, are much more versatile.

I don't know what's wrong with Rose DuBois that she isn't rivetted by 'The Seventh Seal', but then it's hardly a cheerful movie for a retirement home. Other than that first impression, I adored her. We find out quickly that she's in her late seventies, a little later than she's black and later still the details of her awful marriage. Right now, she's doing well, living out her final years at the home of the title, which is a desirable one located in upstate New York. Her best friend is Miller, who would like to be more than that, but she's not ready for a fresh commitment. He's a former professor, he has a lot of patience and it's very easy to like him too.

Of course, with a title like this one, we know that this not going to remain a desirable home much longer and the first to go is Angela Forrest. She dies on her own, so "massacre" is a bit misleading. This isn't about a mass killing spree at a single point in time, it's about someone killing old people over a wider span, albeit not a particularly large one, and the deaths escalate in frequency at an exponential rate. And, crucially, she's eighty-two, so nobody is particularly surprised at all. Death is routine when you're that old. People feel it and are saddened by it but they don't weep because it's everyday.

Also, Angela is very clearly murdered, by someone who appears to be a human being, given that they're hidden behind a mask and wearing combat boots. That's clear to us, of course, not to the folk who run the home, because it was set up like an accident and nobody on staff thinks twice of any other reason. Rose is the only one who's suspicious, for reasons, and has the wherewithal to ask pertinent questions. When Maureen Stapleton reports a peeping tom in a ski mask and Owen shows up dead, Miller and others start to ask questions too and suddenly, we're in a mystery with old folk the only ones who believe there's a serial killer at work.

Even though he sets this up as a very human set of crimes, Fracassi is very happy to hurl far more into play. The Three B's, the joyously gothic Baxter Sisters, are raising a demon in the old asylum on the home's grounds. Stan Swanson believes that it's aliens and he's been visited by them so he ought to know. Maureen's peeping tom suggests a kinky sexual element. And the victims' ages do suggest Munchausen by Proxy, probably by a staff member or visiting physician. There are plenty of possibilities and a few red herrings. I followed one of those early enough that I didn't think the author had caught me out until he went a different way late on, which was just as believable.

I'm actually struggling to decide what aspect I liked the most. The characterisation is a highlight for sure, Fracassi juggling a large ensemble cast of characters, each of them well drawn and easily delineated. I didn't like all of them as much as Rose and Miller but that's perfectly natural. One of the best drawn is Tatum Bird, who's suffering from dementia and rarely lucid. Rose spends quite a lot of time with him on his favourite bench, so he knows her even though he's living in the past for the most part. He's a sad character in so many ways but he's mostly happy, if only he could find his dog. He must be over there.

I also liked how the book builds. 'Boys in the Valley' was a slow burn until it wasn't, with one scene ratcheting up the pace with a turboboost from steady and careful to well into the red in the blink of an eye. This is a slow burn too, but the pace increases consistently with the urgency of the killer until deaths start to far more frequently. There are two at Sandra's party, albeit in very different ways, and three more outside. So the administrator holds a meeting and another one dies during, while another is taken down on the stage and shifted into serious restraints. Suddenly, we're very much in massacre numbers and panic starts to set in amongst the residents.

The sheer believability is a huge plus too. Much of that is the well drawn characterisation but it's not just of the people. It's of the place too. This is a deep use of setting, because we see it from an awful lot of perspectives: the residents, of course, who have plenty of different opinions about it amongst themselves; the administration; the nursing staff; the killer, of course; a detective who's brought in when coincidences stack up too high to be believable; and the families of a number of the residents, including Rose's. What's more, those perspectives skew and shift as the deaths add up. Fracassi painted Autumn Springs with a very careful and insightful eye.

And there are the revelations at the end, which surprised me without ever being unbelievable. It isn't just the identity of the killer, which I hadn't figured out, but important facets of a few major characters' make-up that were telegraphed but I still hadn't extrapolated enough, though I can rest a little easier in the knowledge that people in the story who should have done didn't either. All that makes the ending a particularly powerful and a particularly empowering one. I liked it an awful lot and the same goes for the book as a whole. I was already a Fracassi fan. I'm more of one now. This is so much more than its admittedly tantalising title suggests. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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