Review by Ian Keogh

All Harrow County hardback editions are now out of print, and command premium prices, so you might be better off looking for this content as individual paperbacks Abandoned and Hedge Magic, or in the second Harrow County Omnibus.

Either way they’re largely captivating chapters in the continuing story of 1930s farm girl Emmy Crawford bestowed with astonishing powers, and increasingly of her friend Bernice. Their relationship and the strains on it are the focus of the second half of this collection.

Before then there’s the opening two chapters drawn by Carla Speed McNeil. In Harrow County Volume Two she was a good artist on the wrong story, but that’s no longer the case as we learn the history of the giant bull-like creature first seen alongside dead witch Hester Beck. Its story is a shocker, the horror emotional as much as terror, and McNeil brings out both the moments of relative calm as period drama and the ultimate revelations. It’s a clever story on Cullen Bunn’s part, and you won’t see the revelations coming.

Primary artist Tyler Crook draws the remainder, as ever the seemingly simple art disguising the skill and emotional depth he applies. Bunn trusts Crook to convey what people are feeling, and he does this astonishingly well, especially with the tensions that arise between Emmy and Bernice. As the sample art shows, though, he can deliver the action horror equally well over two chapters concerning hunters come to Harrow County in order to chase down a beast they’ve heard tell of.

Bunn ensures most of the hunters are cocksure specimens who deserve what readers know is coming to them, but as that’s too easy a story to tell he includes a figure of sympathy, and the two chapters become about whether or not they deserve the same fate as the people they hang around with. It’s a simple enough story well told, but ultimately filler in the bigger picture.

That picks up again in the second half of this collection when Emmy learns the local haints are being hunted and killed, and then just who’s responsible. Bunn sets Bernice against her, and both viewpoints can be understood. We know Emmy’s well-intentioned, but is that enough to keep the power she has in check? Bernice isn’t convinced it is, especially when Emmy shows equal concern for the supernatural beings hidden in the forest. Everything builds to a conflict neither really wants, and the outcome is in no way certain as Emmy’s fundamental love for Bernice holds her back. The bigger picture is reintroduced in the final pages of an emotional thriller, and whether or not Bernice is right may play out in Volume Four.

This is all good horror, but how good may depend on whether your preference is the big story, or if you’re willing to accept some diversions along the way.