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Eric Rickstad Conjures Delight and Dread from Small-Town Stories [1]
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Date: 2025-05-29
Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.
At some point, no less esteemed a detective than Sherlock Holmes observed that crime was just as prevalent, and could be just as deadly, in small towns as in big cities. Crime authors who excel at writing about misdeeds in rural and remote settings have long known this too, given all the stories they’ve written since Arthur Conan Doyle first sent Holmes and Watson tramping around the moors.
Author Eric Rickstad is one such writer in the know. A New York Times-bestselling author of crime and thrillers, he’s written a number of novels that play out in small towns, with protagonists who use their knowledge of their towns and the people there to get to the bottom of mysteries that are sometimes small and personal and sometimes huge and pervasive.
I asked Rickstad what about small towns and rural areas made them so intriguing for him as a writer of crime fiction. He talked about the charms of small-town life, including knowing everyone and their stories. Then he touched on the darker vein that helps shape his fiction.
“I trek as deep into the mountains as often as possible. But they can be eerie and dangerous too,” he said in an email interview. “There is a lot of lore associated with them. You can get lost in them. The weather and temperature can change very suddenly, from a pleasant 50-degree autumn day of sunshine to a snowstorm with fierce winds, blinding, disorienting snow, and temperatures below freezing. You can’t see very far. Someone, or something can sneak up from behind very easily. All of these elements make for superb settings and characters.”
That feeling that someone could sneak up behind you — which Conan Doyle knew could occur just as easily along a lonely country lane as an urban back alley — has sparked so much rural crime and thriller fiction.
Rickstad’s books, published primarily in the past ten years, range from the gothic mystery of “I Am Not Who You Think I Am” to “Lilith,” a 2024 novel that feels ripped from the headlines as it focuses on a mother’s reaction to a mass school shooting. He’s also written a series of three novels, beginning with “The Silent Girls,” set in the small Vermont town of Canaan. His most recent books, the “Remote” series, portray the pursuit of a serial killer.
“I Am Not Who You Think I Am” reads like a modern-day juvenile mystery, with a teenage protagonist and his friends trying to solve a tragic suicide. The novel has a decidedly gothic air, featuring a remote mansion with long-hidden secrets.
I asked Rickstad if the gothic tone was intentional. “You nailed it,” he replied. “The woods and wilderness lend that gothic feel for certain. Fog and wind and rain, too. A hundred and fifty years ago, Vermont was almost completely deforested for sheep farming and its need for pastures. It looked a lot like Ireland. Now, it’s 78% forested again. But, when I venture deep into the woods, miles and miles, and up high into the mountains, I find old stone walls everywhere, and foundations of homes and barns.”
He cited the works of author Shirley Jackson, who lived and wrote not far from where Rickstad lives. “I can see the mountain that inspired ‘The Haunting of Hill House’ from my backyard.”
Eric Rickstad poses with a copy of his novel ‘Lilith’ (Photo courtesy of Blackstone Publishing via Instagram).
These rural worlds – small towns in the middle of miles of forest, lakes, and cliffs – make for great fiction, he said.
“I think it’s that both the woods and old manors and mansions are places in which one can easily become lost or trapped or disoriented. Or hide. And, despite how vast both can be, they can also be intensely claustrophobic,” he said. “Each is its own labyrinth. Mansions have their attics and basements and so many rooms and hallways, and the woods can close in on you. Someone could be hiding anywhere in either of them and sneak up behind you. And both tend to have that history, perhaps long before the characters even existed. Both leave one isolated too and cut off from others. Mansions are most often set in rural places to create isolation, privacy, and in a lot of ways, secrecy. It makes for intense suspense.”
His novel “Lilith” is also a story of intense suspense. After a shooter kills and wounds children and teachers at a small school, teacher Elisabeth and her son, Lydan, must recover from wounds both physical and emotional. Lydan’s injuries make it likely his life will never be the same again.
Elisabeth, who saved her entire class from the shooter, is driven by guilt about Lydan, who was in another classroom, and those she couldn’t protect from harm. While the mother and son are recuperating, Elisabeth sees a man interviewed on TV who is a gun dealer, gun rights advocate, and, eventually, a presidential candidate.
Her path forward is clear, she believes. In seeking revenge against school shooters, the worst elements of society, she inadvertently becomes a folk hero, Lilith, who inspires not only acts of peace but also acts of violence.
“It is odd and terrifying that most of our school shootings take place in small communities, often with the assailant being known by the community or a part of the community.” Rickstad said.
Rickstad said his rural home and upbringing inspired his small-town fiction.
“I grew up in a small Vermont town and had a great love for it and for the area of Vermont known as The Northeast Kingdom, which borders Canada. Writing about these places came naturally when I first started writing stories,” he said. “My mother worked in our local hardware store. It was a hub of gossip and storytellers and social connection. When I would stop in, there were always people telling stories. These people and places inspired me to tell my own stories, and each town is full of a wide breadth and depth of ‘characters.’ Not all of them good characters. As many bad things can happen in small towns as in any city.”
One of the things that can happen: People go missing. It’s a common thread in Rickstad’s books. I asked if it’s easier to disappear in a big city or a rural area, because both have their lonely places.
“I’m not sure which setting is easier to go missing, but I feel that if one does go missing, they are harder to find in the rural areas,” Rickstad said. “There are far fewer surveillance cameras in rural areas, oftentimes there are none at all. So if one was abducted, it’s far less likely it would be witnessed and recorded by cameras or witnessed by a person.”
Maybe that’s a warning. Maybe that’s instructional. In either case, it’s the province of many a fictional sleuth — and the authors who craft their stories.
Eric Rickstad’s novels are available via your public library or wherever books are sold.
Keith Roysdon is a Tennessee-based writer of fiction, true crime, and pop culture. His 1984-set crime novel “THAT OCTOBER” is available now.
This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.
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