Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Bad Man cover art

Bad Man

By: Dathan Auerbach
Narrated by: Lincoln Hoppe
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Untcigahunk cover art
Occasional Demons cover art
The Tea Party cover art
The Exorcist's House cover art
Blood Meridian cover art
Gone to See the River Man cover art
The Hollower cover art
My Heart Is a Chainsaw cover art
Bedbugs cover art
Undertaker's Moon cover art
Wyoming Wild cover art
The Shadow of What Was Lost cover art
Video Nasties cover art
Safe with Me cover art
Birthday Girl cover art
Strangers cover art

Summary

Reddit horror sensation Dathan Auerbach delivers a devilishly dark novel about a young boy who goes missing, and the brother who won't stop looking for him.

Eric disappeared when he was three years old. Ben looked away for only a second at the grocery store, but that was all it took. His brother was gone. Vanished right into the sticky air of the Florida Panhandle. They say you've got only a couple days to find a missing person. Forty-eight hours to conduct searches, knock on doors, and talk to witnesses. Two days to tear the world apart if there's any chance of putting yours back together. That's your window.

That window closed five years ago, leaving Ben's life in ruins. He still looks for his brother. Still searches while his stepmother sits and waits and whispers for Eric, refusing to leave the house that Ben's father can no longer afford. Now 20 and desperate for work, Ben takes a night stock job at the only place that will have him: the store that blinked Eric out of existence.

Ben can feel that there's something wrong there. With the people. With his boss. With the graffitied baler that shudders and moans and beckons. There's something wrong with the air itself. He knows he's in the right place now. That the store has much to tell him. So, he keeps searching. Keeps looking for his baby brother while missing the most important message of all. That he should have stopped looking.

©2018 Dathan Auerbach (P)2018 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“An atmospheric and unsettling novel.... Auerbach’s portrait of an after-hours grocery store - as benign a setting as one could imagine - takes on an aura of almost Gothic menace. Most importantly, his ability to convey the grief, guilt and sense of loss that fuel Ben’s fixation gives the book a resonant emotional center. With just two novels, Auerbach has established himself as a significant figure in the post-King generation of horror writers.” (The Washington Post)

“Auerbach cleverly weaves in the horror trope of creepy kids amid a vibe that’s best described as Stephen King meets Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.... The novel is wickedly effective in creating a feeling of doom.... Bad Man delivers an unexpected gut punch and saves its darkest deeds for an unnerving end.” (USA Today)

“If you think The Shining set in a grocery store, you’re not far off.... Auerbach is magnificent with atmosphere, able to conjure dread from a huge array of normally nonthreatening places. This is a horror author to watch very, very closely.” (Booklist)

“Dark and disturbing.... Readers will be reminded of the young Stephen King.” (Publishers Weekly)

More from the same

What listeners say about Bad Man

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    7
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    11
  • 4 Stars
    6
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    6
  • 2 Stars
    5
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Exceptional

This is an intriguing listen, found by accident but will be recommended to many.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!