Joe Colicchio’s Blame the Devil is a dark supernatural literary horror novel about evil, faith, revenge, and the strange burden of being chosen to answer cruelty when ordinary justice fails. Set largely in 1967 Jersey City, the story follows Donna Mahoney and Dennis Henry, two outsiders whose tentative friendship grows in the shadow of family grief, Catholic guilt, neighborhood violence, and the monstrous presence of Officer Victor Varde. As Donna begins to understand her identity as an Avenging Angel, the novel shifts from coming-of-age story into supernatural revenge tale, asking what justice looks like when evil is not just human but ancient.

What struck me first was the voice. This is not a quiet book. It has a big, restless, street-corner energy, moving from cosmic history to neighborhood gossip to brutal realism in a matter of pages. I liked how Colicchio makes Jersey City feel almost mythic without sanding off its rough edges. The Plateau is not just a setting. It feels like a pressure cooker, full of Catholic ritual, old grudges, kids trying to survive, and adults who should know better but often do worse. The supernatural pieces work because they grow out of that world instead of floating above it. Devils do not arrive in smoke and thunder here. They wear uniforms, sit in diners, tell ugly stories, and know how to make people feel small. That choice gives the horror genre a grounded, bitter charge.

I also found the book’s moral imagination both compelling and uncomfortable. Colicchio is not afraid to make the reader sit with pain, especially the damage done to Donna and Richie, and there were moments when the darkness felt almost punishing. But I think that is part of the book’s design. It wants to ask whether forgiveness is always noble, whether justice without mercy becomes its own kind of danger, and whether rage can be a calling rather than a flaw. Donna’s arc is especially interesting because she is not written as a simple victim or a simple hero. She is vulnerable, funny, wounded, curious, and increasingly dangerous. Dennis, with his odd precision and gentle devotion, gives the story some needed tenderness. Their bond keeps the novel from becoming only a catalog of harm.

As a work of supernatural horror, Blame the Devil is best suited for readers who like their genre fiction messy, ambitious, and morally thorny. It will appeal to those who enjoy literary horror, Catholic-inflected supernatural stories, revenge narratives, and character-driven novels that mix the cosmic with the grimly local. I would recommend it most to readers who do not mind disturbing material and who appreciate a book that argues with faith, justice, and evil rather than simply using them as decoration. It is rough-edged and strange, but it has a unique feel.