I managed my expectations pretty well for reading this one. I wanted regular horror and got it. It's October, after all, and isn't this the season to enjoy a run of scary? 
 Or is it simply the desire to see evil as plain as day, to root for the underdogs, to gather up all the misfits and see all the jerks and the ultraviolent assholes of the world get their comeuppance? 
 Maybe a bit of both. 
 Fortunately, there's a lot of bigger-than-life characters in this small town and the good guys are good pretty much all the way through. The bad, however, are really bad. :) And did I mention a recurring string of gruesome murders in a small town known for it's spectacular Halloween festivals meant to scare your pants off? 
 Yeah, well, aside from a few great scenes and pretty epic buildup, I'm gonna have to hold my horses to see the grand explosion because this is a trilogy! 
 That's fine, of course. Sometimes a tale is very long. I just have to wonder what it might have been like to have this as one gigantic tome like the good old days of epic horrors instead of the bite-sizes publishers think we want. *shrug* 
 So maybe I'll just pretend it's one book. That's the ticket! And people think that readers are without imagination! I'll show them!