There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole: When social horror meets alien conspiracy

There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole is a science fiction horror novel that combines an investigation into a mysterious death with a disturbing portrait of racism in 1970s Mississippi. I found myself torn between admiration for Cole’s portrayal of a Black detective navigating a community that seems determined to make his life miserable and frustration with the decisions that detective makes once the investigation takes an increasingly bizarre turn. The novel has some compelling ideas about what it means to exist as an outsider in a hostile society, but its characters’ behavior made it difficult for me to remain invested in the story.

Set in Wenton, Mississippi, the novel begins when a man enters the bathroom of a local gay bar and never returns. His body is discovered on the floor, facing the wall, and nobody seems to have an explanation for what happened to him. Samuel Barkley, the town’s only Black detective, takes the case alongside Harvey, a temporary partner whose presence complicates an already uncomfortable working life. As Samuel investigates, the case leads him toward a supposed plane crash and a cover-up that reveals something far stranger than an ordinary murder. Whatever has arrived in Wenton is not human, and it seems to have no intention of leaving.

The strongest part of Cole’s novel is its portrayal of Samuel’s place in the world. As a Black man working in a police department where he cannot count on his colleagues’ respect, Samuel must navigate a professional environment in which his competence is never enough to overcome the prejudices of the people around him. The hostility extends beyond the department, creating a community where even a polite smile can carry an unmistakable threat. Samuel wants to advance in his career, but he must constantly consider how his actions will be interpreted by people who seem to have already decided what kind of person he is.

Cole handles these dynamics with a clarity that makes Samuel’s predicament feel immediate rather than abstract. The novel allows readers to experience the exhausting calculations that come with moving through a world where other people regard your very existence as a problem. Samuel cannot simply do his job. He must also manage the expectations, suspicions, and animosity of those around him, all while trying to preserve his own sense of self. The result is an effective depiction of the psychological toll of living in a society that refuses to offer you the same freedom of movement and thought that others take for granted.

The 1970s setting adds another dimension to this portrayal. Born in the 1970s myself, I am always conscious of how recent that decade actually was, even when it seems to belong to a different historical era. Cole’s depiction of race relations can make Wenton feel like a place separated from the present by an enormous gulf, yet the attitudes driving its hostility are recognizable in contemporary U.S. American life. The historical setting does not allow readers to dismiss the racism as a relic of a distant past. Instead, it invites us to consider how much has changed and how much remains painfully familiar.

Fiction can offer a distinctive kind of access to experiences that may be far removed from our own. A nonfiction account can explain discrimination, document its consequences, and present the facts of a particular person’s experience. A novel can also place readers inside a character’s daily frustrations and fears, allowing them to feel the accumulated weight of indignities that might seem insignificant when considered individually. Cole succeeds at this aspect of the story, giving Samuel’s experiences an emotional immediacy that makes his treatment by the people around him difficult to ignore.

Unfortunately, the investigation itself proved much less convincing to me. Samuel is presented as an intelligent detective who knows how to do his job, but his decisions repeatedly undermined that characterization. The mystery begins with a death that already suggests something is seriously wrong beyond the ordinary circumstances of a murder. As the investigation progresses, Samuel and Harvey encounter evidence that points toward a threat outside the boundaries of conventional criminal behavior. Even so, they continue to approach the case as though finding a human killer remains their primary concern.

I had trouble accepting this reluctance to reconsider their assumptions. From the first death, the circumstances suggested to me that the victim had been killed by something operating inside his body rather than by an external attacker. The apparent biological nature of the killing made me wonder why the detectives did not push more urgently for scientific expertise. Once the evidence began to point toward something decidedly nonhuman, I wanted to see them recognize that they were dealing with a situation requiring specialists who understood biological hazards. Instead, their continued reliance on ordinary police procedures made the investigation feel increasingly detached from the evidence in front of them.

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I can understand that characters might struggle to accept an extraordinary explanation for events that defy their understanding of the world. A detective does not have to jump immediately to the conclusion that aliens are responsible for a murder, and a gradual shift in perspective can make a science fiction mystery more compelling. My problem was that Samuel and Harvey seemed slow to respond even when the evidence should have forced them to reconsider their approach. Their reluctance did not always read as a believable human response to the inexplicable. It often felt as though they were ignoring information the story had already given them.

The sequence in which the detectives sneak out to investigate the supposed crash site brought this frustration into sharp focus. They encounter something that appears dangerous and unfamiliar, yet Samuel puts his fist into it nearly to his shoulder. I could not reconcile that decision with the intelligence and professional experience the novel attributes to him. Whatever Samuel believes he is investigating, sticking a hand into an unknown substance or structure is an astonishingly reckless choice. I found myself thinking less about the danger the characters faced and more about why an experienced detective would behave that way.

These moments made suspending disbelief a challenge. I am perfectly willing to follow a story into the realm of the impossible, especially when horror and science fiction overlap. I do not need every mystery to have a realistic explanation, nor do I expect characters to respond perfectly to extraordinary circumstances. But I do need their decisions to make sense within the personalities and circumstances the author has established. When characters repeatedly overlook obvious dangers or fail to respond meaningfully to the evidence in front of them, the resulting tension loses some of its force. I became more irritated with the investigators than concerned about what might happen to them.

I also struggled with the relationship between Samuel and his sister. Their interactions have an intimacy that struck me as uncomfortable, and the scene in which they play footsie beneath the kitchen table only intensified my reaction. I found their dynamic difficult to interpret as ordinary sibling affection, and the fact that they share a bedroom as adults added to my discomfort. There may be a specific intention behind these choices, but I did not find their relationship convincing or emotionally effective. Instead, it became another element of the novel that pulled me out of the story.

That is what makes There Used to Be People Here such a frustrating read for me. Cole demonstrates a strong understanding of how racism shapes a person’s experience of the world, and Samuel’s struggle to exist in a community that resents him gives the novel a meaningful emotional foundation. I admired the way the author brought that hostility into the everyday details of Samuel’s life, making it impossible to separate his investigation from the social environment in which it unfolds. Yet I needed the mystery and the characters’ responses to its escalating revelations to be more convincing than they were.

Readers who enjoy stories that combine social commentary with paranormal conspiracy may find plenty to appreciate here, especially in Cole’s treatment of race and otherness. For me, the novel’s strongest ideas were undermined by investigative choices that strained my credibility threshold and a sibling relationship that left me uncomfortable for reasons the story did not resolve. I finished the book appreciating what Cole was trying to explore, even as I remained frustrated by the execution.

There Used to Be People Here by Kennedy Cole will be released on November 3, 2026. I was fortunate to receive a print copy from the publisher, which I always appreciate after spending so much of my working day staring at a screen. I know the argument that reading on a Kindle is comparable to reading a physical book, but I don’t own a Kindle; I use the Kindle app on an inexpensive tablet because a dedicated e-reader isn’t in my budget. Having an actual book in my hands is a welcome change. In this case, though, the pleasure of reading a print edition couldn’t quite compensate for my frustrations with the story itself.

Have you read a science fiction or horror novel whose social commentary impressed you even when the plot or characters didn’t entirely work for you? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments.

An advance reader copy of this book (ARC) was provided to me by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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