Keith really smashed it with this one.As a parent, this is pure nightmare fuel for me. So a young blind girl, Hannah, is taken into a van when walking home and her friend fails to stop it and she goes missing...Thirteen years later, we follow her father Eli a broken former police officer and recovering addict still haunted by her disappearance and still trying to look for answers. Whilst looking for his daughter strange and supernatural things start to happen. I have to say the structure for this book is excellent and the is spot on throughout. I was never bored; every page felt important.Rosson doesn’t shy away from the ugliness either. The people, the town, the woods, the crime, the biker gangs, drug use it's all there and all really felt lived in. The depiction of drug use is really unpleasant and pretty gory which surprised me. The crime, drug use and missing daughter really helped this supernatural story also reinforce the book’s bleak tone that I felt. But that doesn't stop the genuine emotional moments scattered in the book too.There’s a brief detour that stands out as one of my favourite sections that I actually messaged Rosson about as I liked it so much. It's tense, unsettling, and pretty scary and gory. It's incredibly well done. There’s also a subtle callback that fans of Rosson's past work that you may appreciate without giving anything away.Crone comes full circle in a way that really hits the mark it's also pretty darn sad. This is only my second Rosson book, but back to back great reads of his work has definitely made me a fan. Thank you to NetGalley and Black Crow Books for an early eARC for a review.

Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) review. 4.25 stars.This is my fourth Keith Rosson book, who discovered with Coffin Moon which was followed almost immediately by his Fever House duology.Rosson has cooked up a gritty, heart-rending story of grief, love, and vengeance, with razor sharp prose that will hit with fiends old and new.Rosson plays with the witch trope in 'crone', yet the real horror is often in what men are capable of doing for power and money. I really enjoyed the titular "monster" in this book - my expectations were subverted in part, with its feminine rage but also compassion.The prose and dialogue are excellent, the atmosphere is bleak yet there is light, and the Crone is fierce. Rosson is one my favourite contemporary writers and this book continues to reaffirm this. Inject this right beneath my nails (IFYKYK).I rated this book 4.25 stars. I'm super miserly with my ratings so this is a really high rating for me, on par with Coffin Moon and The Devil By Name (FYI I rated Fever House a 4.5).