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Unflinching violence and good character development, of what I gathered these are aspects of Jack Ketchum's writing that make his books so memorable for fans of horror fiction. Off Season offers exactly that, it is a satisfactory thriller, but one that hits its climax by the end of the 2nd act and starts dwindling after that. There's plenty of action and graphic scenes in the final part of the book, but something was simply missing there for me, I'm still not sure what it was, but I have an hypothesis.

I read the whole book in a day so there's no denying Ketchum's ability to create a captivating scenario that prompts the reader to keep reading. I was not particularly fond of the characters when they were introduced, yet their dynamics were compelling, the simmering conflicts they enveloped drawn me. So it was not disappointing when all hell broke loose and tension escalated, the action was gripping and the characters felt alive in their reactions to the unpredictable. I was especially interested in one specific character descent into catatonic stupor, there's a brief, but very vivid description of this character's point of view, Ketchum captures their moment of psychological withdrawn in almost poetic manner.

Still, after that point I felt myself losing interest in the narrative, there is a change of pace, a sense of hopelessness that grows and an outcome that looks bleaker and bleaker by the second. (The passing of time registered in the chapters creates an interesting reflection on how life-changing events can happen so fast, how quickly one's life can be destroyed). There is nothing wrong with stark developments and descriptions of violent acts, what I really missed was the interiority that made me care about the narrative and was so present in the first half of the book. Except for a brief moment of savage reparation by the end, the scenes transpire without much reflection. It is as if the characters are so tired, reduced so drastically to pure instinct that their inner voices resign, withering before the unspeakable acts of violence they witness and commit. The author might also have omitted these interior depictions in detriment of a more fast-paced plot progress, this was Ketchum's first book after all, some irregularity of the writing is not unheard of in debut novels. Despite that I can say this is a thoroughly enjoyable casual read, a blood soaked, but not soulless kind of horror book.