The Unspoken.

Cancer plays a big part in my life given that I work in a pathology laboratory where the principal work is in the diagnosis of this horrible disease. I must have read mountains of literature about it, and spend most of my day looking down a microscope trying to identify it so was intrigued to see this new collection of short stories edited by William Meikle which is subtitled An Anthology for Cancer Relief. It contains seventeen stories and all profits will be going to the Beatson Cancer Research Institute, a laudable aim, and - given the quality of the writing on display here - will hopefully be hugely successful.
Many of the stories within The Unspoken use the theme of cancer as their basis, either overtly or indirectly whilst others have no link to it at all (or are so tenuous that I missed them completely). Notable amongst these is Harbinger by Stephen Laws, an enigmatic, ambiguous tale that I loved precisely for those reasons. It was great to see something new from Stephen (although I'm not sure when the story was written) who was - is - a bit of a hero of mine, having written some brilliant novels set in his - and my -home region, and who probably didn't get the recognition he really deserved.
The theme of the desperation of being diagnosed with cancer leading to Faustian deals is explored in ascending order of success by Stephen James Price's Pages of Promises, Anna Taborska's Underbelly and, in my opinion the best of the three Stevens Savile and Lockley's The Last Gift.
There are contributions too from the editor- The Unfinished Basement - which I'd encountered previously in his wonderful Dark Melodies and the publisher, Johnny Mains with another story I'd read before in his collection Frightfully Cosy and Mild Stories for Nervous Types, with The Cure - a truly disturbing story that was the highlight of that collection for me and which still has the power to shock even on second reading.
David A Riley provides a blood-soaked slice of fantasy in A Girl, A Toad and a Flask whilst John Shirley gives us the board meeting from Hell (aren't they all..?) in Where the Market's Hottest.
The two stand-out stories for me were ones where the theme of cancer was used most tangentially, Gary McMahon's Bitter Soup highlights the decay and necrosis associated with the disease in a harrowing tale full of disturbing imagery and Simon Kurt Unsworth's Photograph's of Boden, a psychological horror that plays on the theme of the inexorable spread of a life-changing, life-threatening process.
The Unspoken is an excellent collection of stories covering a wide range of styles. Given that cancer is derived from the Greek word for crab, it's only fitting that Guy N Smith has a story in here too. You can buy it here and here and I thoroughly recommend that you do.

Let's Drink to the Dead.

In much the same way as The Sisters of Mercy spawned The Mission and err... Ghost Dance, so Simon Bestwick's novel The Faceless has given rise to this collection of three short stories  set in the town of Kempforth and featuring some of the characters from the book which was my choice as best novel of 2012.
There's a twist in the tales though as they're all set in the eighties, long before the contemporary events described in the novel. It's a ploy that works extremely well, not only establishing the history - the dark history - of the town but adding insight to the characters themselves, describing events that moulded and formed them, adding depth.
This is most effective in the opening story, The Sight, a story that's about as dark as it can get telling of the childhood horrors experienced by Alan and Vera, a tale of abuse and the abused which is unremittingly disturbing. It reminded me a lot of Joe Lansdale's Night They Missed the Horror Show, a story in which a dead dog being tied to the back of a car is the least horrible thing to happen in it. It's the strongest of the three stories and a powerful start to the collection.
The second story Gideon is the least effective of the three, using the trope of Hitch-hiker Given Sanctuary By Creepy Stranger to allow an exposition-heavy account of the history of Ash Fell in the post war years. It covers a lot of ground already explored in the novel but despite this is a nicely constructed, creepy story with some disturbing imagery.
How Briefly Dead Children Dream is the final story, the longest of the three, and tells of a battle between "The Shrike" - a wonderful creation, fusing human and supernatural evil - and two elderly residents of Kempforth over the souls (and bodies...) of two children. It's a thrilling end to the collection and even manages some moments of poignancy amidst the mayhem and horror.
It's not vital to have read The Faceless to appreciate these stories but I would recommend that you should read the novel before delving into them. (I'd recommend it anyway because it's a brilliant book). I'm not sure if they were written prior to, during or after the novel but they're a wonderful companion piece to it.
Disturbing and horrifying, Let's Drink to the Dead is another brilliant piece of writing from Simon Bestwick. Buy it you should, and you can do that here.

Whitstable.

Whitstable, written by Stephen Volk, is the third novella in the Spectral Visions series published by the consistently wonderful Spectral Press. As with the previous novellas, it's a beautifully produced product, the limited edition hardback a real collector's item.
The story is set in 1971 and is a fictionalised account of an episode in the life of Peter Cushing following the death of his beloved wife Helen. It begins with Cushing a broken man, overwhelmed by grief and the writing in these opening pages is so, so powerful, capturing perfectly the conflicting emotions of a man who has lost the love of his life, his raison d'etre,  unwilling - unable even - to move on with his life. It's beautifully written but heart-breaking, made all the more poignant by the fact that this is the description of a man everyone who reads this book knows, or at least knows of. Everyone will have their own impressions of Peter Cushing and it's a fairly safe bet that the majority will hold him in great esteem, a true gentleman who brought gravitas, dignity even to every part he played. Even at a young age I was aware of this, often using it as a counter-argument to my parents whenever they expressed concerns at the type of film I was watching and so obviously enjoying. "But Peter Cushing's in it," I would reply, "he's a proper actor..."
A chance encounter with a young boy on the beach (Carl Drinkwater, a name with resonances to Carl Bridgewater, another young boy with a tragic childhood in the seventies) provides the catalyst to pull the actor from the decline into which he's fallen. Making the assumption that Cushing is in face Van Helsing in real life, the boy asks him to deal with the "vampire"- his mother's new boyfriend - who "visits at night-time" and "takes his blood" - a naïve interpretation of events that both Cushing and the reader know refers to something much more disturbing.
At one point, Carl says "I can't move. I'm heavy and I've got no life and I don't want to have life anymore." It's almost a perfect summation of how Peter Cushing is himself feeling - and may be the impetus for his decision to help the boy but Stephen Volk skilfully "hides" the words in the middle of a section of dialogue, subtly adding it in without drawing attention to it. It's a masterful piece of writing.
The narrative of the novella then describes the newly galvanised actor's investigation of, and ultimate confrontation with the boy's tormentor, that confrontation occurring first at a market (where Cushing claims the man's sole) and then in a cinema in a cleverly written dialogue set against descriptions of the film playing on screen, Cushing's own The Vampire Lovers.
Whitstable was a joy to read, it's a perfectly pitched character study and Stephen Volk's admiration for the actor shines out from the pages. The period detail is lovingly created and rendered and references to the actor's body of work are plentiful without being a distraction. At times it's unbearably sad - a reference to the Morecambe and Wise show of all things brought a lump to my throat - but ultimately it's an uplifting experience and a fitting tribute to the great man.
As an actor, Peter Cushing battles countless on-screen monsters. This battle with an all too human monster, and his own personal demons, makes Whitstable an instant classic.

Shadows and Tall Trees 5.

Shadows & Tall Trees 5 is the latest edition of the literary horror journal from Michael Kelly’s Undertow Books.It so happens that it’s the last time it will appear in this particular incarnation, as from here on in, the stories will be published as a yearly trade paperback. That’s a shame in one respect given that the publication will be less frequent but, given that it’s quality – not quantity – that really counts, it’s not that big a hardship as the stories Michael collects are consistently of the highest quality.

Issue 5 which, like issue 3 has glorious cover art from Eric Lacombe, maintains that high standard of quality with aplomb, containing eight wonderful stories and, in a development I’m very happy to see, a non-fiction essay on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper by V.H. Leslie whose Senbazuru was one of the highlights of Issue 4.

The fiction gets off to a cracking start with Gary Fry’s New Wave, a story of startling imagery and dark secrets that perfectly balances reason and logic against supernatural terror to create the right amount of ambiguity in a haunting tale with a killer last line.

Casting Ammonites by Claire Massey is the shortest story in the collection but was another of my favourites, its short length actually a bonus in that I read it and then re-read it pretty much straight away, trying to interpret what this labyrinthine, enigmatic tale was all about. I’m still not sure I have, but therein lies its true pleasure.

Next up is A Cavern of Redbrick by Richard Gavin which was the highlight of the issue for me for its wonderful writing and the way it subtly, by suggestion and implication, uncovers a dark secret from the past.

The narrative voice in D.P. Watt’s Laudate Dominum was a little too didactic for my taste although a necessary device given the story’s protagonist whilst Moonstruck by Karen Tidbeck provides a heady mix of lunacy – in its most literal sense – and menstrual angst in an (almost) apocalyptic fable.

Ray Cluley has fun with a horror cliché – the hiker wandering into a lonely pub and hearing the locals telling scary stories – and I did too reading Whispers in the Mist, a story that plays with the reader’s expectations right up until the very end.

The Other Boy by Daniel Mills is another beautifully written ghost story where childhood tragedy haunts the present day and Widdershins by Lynda E. Rucker completes the collection with a story that uses another classic horror trope of the newcomer/outsider uncovering dark secrets, doing so in a most effective way.

Michael Kelly has once again demonstrated his unerring skill in selecting stories of the highest quality for Shadows & Tall Trees, stories that stimulate both intellect and emotion. Issue 5 may mark a farewell to the current format but I’m confident that the high standards already achieved will be maintained in the new annual collection. The new volumes are promised to be “bigger and better” – I can’t wait to find out.

You can buy Shadows & Tall Trees  here or, if you prefer, here or even here. 

NOS4R2.

I already knew who Joe Hill was - or rather who his father was - before I started reading his books. I was determined not to let the familial connection sway my opinions of them, positively or negatively - but soon realised that this wasn't going to be an issue anyway, the quality of the writing on display was so high that any comparisons became redundant, Heart Shaped Box is one of the best first novels I've read and Twentieth Century Ghosts is an almost perfect collection of short stories. It was with some anticipation then, that I waited for the release of  Joe's new novel NOS4R2. (Or NOS4A2 if you're American - it's that whole tomato/tomato thing (a comparison that obviously works better said out loud than written down, (patronise/patronise maybe, nope, that's no better at all really))).
Anyhow, given I've now fulfilled an ambition to write a sentence containing three sets of brackets (parentheses), I can move on and say that NOS4R2 more than fulfils the promise of Joe's earlier books, indeed is even more impressive.
I hesitate to say something sound-bitey like "this is the novel in which Joe Hill finds his true voice" because in reality this is actually the book in which he comes closest to using his Dad's voice. This, I hasten to add, is not meant as any kind of criticism. In a book where one of the many themes explored is that of family it's entirely fitting that this should be Joe Hill's homage to Stephen King. The clues are there for everyone to see, with references to characters and locations from his father's books, (and his own too...). The family pet is a St Bernard reminiscent of Cujo, NOS4R2 is the registration number of a Rolls Royce Wraith with similar "properties" to King's Christine and the main character Vic McQueen has a special gift that leaves her damaged every time she uses it much like Johnny Smith from The Dead Zone.
NOS4R2 is a big book, but then it has to be to cram in all the themes, references and plotlines. It works on so many levels, a criticism of the commercialism of Christmas, a treatise on the power of creativity, a love story, a "vampire" story, a superhero story... the list goes on. It's so skillfully written though that you never feel overwhelmed by everything that's in there, all the disparate elements combine with each other to form a perfect whole. Holding it all together are well drawn characters about whom you care deeply driven along by a plot that will keep you hooked through the entire (just short of) 700 pages. For any fan of horror fiction, reading NOS4R2 is like having all your Christmases come at once.
Hill has created an iconic villain in Charlie Manx, a truly horrifying creation with real depth who - despite carrying all the vampire references around with him - manages to come across as original and unique. His Renfield - Bing, The Gasmask Man - is an equally impressive creation.
You'll laugh, you'll cry (really, you will...) but most of all you'll be moved and entertained. I can't fault NOS4R2 on any level, it's already my favourite novel of the year and it's going to take something truly spectacular to dislodge it from the top spot.

Bloody Angels.

Bloody Angels is the second Parva Corcoran mystery by John Llewellyn Probert, featuring the CID coroner whose first outing was in the thoroughly entertaining Ward 19. This is a slightly longer story and allows John to incorporate even more extremely nasty murders - this time centred around a religious theme - into the plot which twists and turns towards its conclusion.
The murders are horrific but this is more mainstream crime fiction than horror and comes complete with the requisite line up of potential villains and red herrings in abundance, and it's to John's credit, and testament to his skills as a writer, that he manages to pack quite so much plot and character into a relatively short piece.
It may be due to my own lapsed catholicism but I do love stories that use a religious theme so it was a real pleasure to read Bloody Angels - but then it's always a pleasure to read John's stuff, his enthusiasm leaps off the page at you. This is a good book.
The denoument is suitably surprising and entertainingly complex - but eminently satisfying, making sense of all that has gone before. There are more hints too at Parva's past and the events which have formed her character - hopefully these will be expanded on in future storylines. God knows what John has in store for the residents of Bristol next (although after this offering I'm not sure God will want anything to do with him...) but I can't wait to find out.
Bloody Angels is bloody good and you can buy it (in e-format) here. Be a sin not to really.

For the Night is Dark.

For the Night is Dark is a collection of twenty stories published by Crystal Lake Publishing, a new small press operating out of South Africa and masterminded by author Joe Mynhardt. It's edited by Ross Warren who provides an entertaining introduction to the book which is a chunky little fella, running to over 400 pages.
As the title suggests, the stories are themed around fear of the dark - or at least the majority of them are. It has to be said that in a number of cases the link is a tenuous one (in the sense of tenuous to the point of non-existent) but this shouldn't be held against the book, indeed one of the stories that fall into this category is one of the most enjoyable, A Snitch in Time by Robert W Walker, a tale of hitmen that twists and turns throughout its short length.
The opening story, His Own Personal Golgotha by G N Braun also has tenuous links to the overarching theme and perhaps relies a little too much on imagery for its impact, a case of style over substance. There's a definite change in tone with the next story, Carole Johnston's 21 Brooklands: Next to Old Western, Opposite the Burnt Out Red Lion, which, as well as having the best title of all the stories, firmly establishes the theme of nasty things that happen in the dark.
The horror in these stories comes in many forms, most overtly in Gary McMahon's In the Darkest Room in the Darkest House on the Darkest Part of the Street (the second best title in the book) and Stephen Bacon's Room to Thrive - the latter a story that will definitely grow on you. The dark itself becomes a monster in Jasper Bark's How the Dark Bleeds, a potent blend of arcane rituals and gore. The creepiest story in the collection, and the one that best evokes those childhood fears of the dark as depicted in Ben Baldwin's cover art, is Mr Stix by the ever-consistent Mark West.
Benedict Jones provides another example of his own brand of crime/horror fusion with Hungry is the Dark, a story that transforms the darkness within us all into something a lot more tangible and the collection is rounded off with another cleverly constructed story from the extremely talented Ray Cluley.
For the Night is Dark is a strong collection of stories and bodes well for future publications from Crystal Lake. Joe's enthusiasm for the genre is second to none and I wish him every success in establishing a new outlet for horror writing.