Into the Dark: The Field by Ian Dawson

Fourteen-year-old Daniel Robinson sprinted down the final 100 meters of Meadowbrook Middle Schools' rubberized track. Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel could see that his best friend Kyle Hanson was on his tail, inching his way closer and closer to passing him. Not gonna happen, Daniel thought, his eyes fixed on the finishing line.

Sweat covered Daniel's face and stung his eyes but he didn't dare take the time to wipe it off. He had to beat his best time. He and Kyle were both planning to join the cross-country and track teams at high school. With his last remaining burst of energy, Daniel raced ahead of Kyle and buzzed past the P.E. teacher with her stopwatch.

Kyle slowed down to a jog next to him. "We're gonna kick butt at cross-country next year!" he said.

Daniel and Kyle had been best friends and friendly rivals since Kindergarten, and with middle school graduation behind them, they can't wait to spend their summer finishing the mapping of their symbol of summer freedom, The Field, a huge grassy area with rock outcroppings and a pond, bounded by a thick woods behind their subdivision. After a celebratory family cook-out Daniel agrees to stay over at Kyle's house, and the field calls them for a quick game of hide and seek in the back corner of the field where they haven't yet explored. As almost high school guys, they shrug off the story in the morning news about the little kid reported missing in that area, and grabbing their bikes, head off in late sunlight of June.

But also heading for that corner of the field are a pair of very different friends, Austin and James, older and engaged in a pernicious relationship in which Austin cruelly abuses James to keep him under his control. Austin and James have a far darker reason for being in the field that evening.

There were two rooms that Austin had created that branched off the main tunnel, the Torture Room and the Trophy Room. There was something about the look in Austin's eyes when he was torturing and killing animals that made James wish he had never encountered his "friend." And yet, he was, once again entering the Torture Room for one of Austin's surprises. Were those small human hands he was seeing zip-locked to the top of the cinderblock?

"Meet our new pal, Colby Emerson!" Austen said as he lifted the kid up by his neck.

In true horror-tale tradition, readers will be silently screaming, "No, don't go into that field," but the boys do, Daniel splitting off to hide first, where after a breath-holding pursuit he is captured and falls victim to Austin's torture plans. James has already lost an eye to Austen's domination and is terrified of him, and when it grows dark and Kyle realizes that Daniel is not playing a prank, he realizes that something bad must have happened and sets out to find his friend.

Spotting Daniel's clumsily hidden bike off a remote road, Kyle approaches the seedy house where Daniel is being held and overhears Austen's plan to torture and skin Daniel alive.

Daniel tilted his neck downward and saw his hands and feet duct taped together. He felt sick and hoped he wouldn't throw up. With the tape around his mouth, if he vomited he would choke and die. And he wasn't going to give these two monsters that satisfaction. He was going to fight.

Not for the faint of heart, in this just published young adult thriller, The Field (BookBaby, 2018), author Ian Dawson skillfully plays off the contrasts with the parallel types of adolescent relationships, the difference between psycholotic dependence and loyal friendship.

Along the way Dawson builds the tension to a high level of suspense as Kyle uses everything he's got to save himself and his friend. It's a heart-racing, cliffhanger of a thriller, one that will have readers checking their doorlocks, with an all-too-believable premise, reinforced by the author's actual childhood experience. A believable, suspenseful novel, well-paced and well written, this one is for those who crave a real chiller-diller of a read.