The Hammer of Dr Valentine.

The Hammer of Dr Valentine is the much-anticipated sequel to John Llewellyn Probert's novella The Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine and, like its predecessor, is published by Spectral Press. In the first book, the titular medic carried out a series of elaborately gruesome murders on fellow members of his profession, the modus operandi of which were based on the films of Vincent Price. In this follow up, and employing the principle of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", another set of gloriously over the top murders are presented, dripping in Kensington Gore and modelled on the films produced by Hammer.
As with the first book, the author's enthusiasm for the subject matter leaps off the pages and the end result is yet another thoroughly entertaining - and yes, Proberty romp that will bring a smile to the face of anyone familiar with the classic British films that are referenced within. Actually, it will bring a smile to the face of anyone who reads it whether they're familiar with the source material or not as the author brings his trademark tongue-in-cheek style of writing to the proceedings, managing the tricky skill of presenting truly awful things happening to people in such a way that it's entertaining and yes, even enjoyable.
The people the terrible things happen to in this instance are journalists, specifically the journalists who collaborated on a book detailing the crimes perpetrated in Nine Deaths and John takes great delight in showing them up to be shallow and devious - so much so that you'll end up rooting for Dr Valentine. Who here has not whiled away the time thinking up gruesome ways of murdering a Daily Mail journalist? Yes you have. Admit it.
Some of the joy to be had from reading the book is working out which films are being referenced but John has done a grand job here "re-interpreting" the original death scenes and putting a new spin on them. There's enough of the original to make the nostalgic among us go "aaah..." but plenty originality to appreciate too. I didn't spot them all but have to admit to cheering when, in the book's climax, that scene from that Dracula film got a nod.
The good news is that this won't be the last we see of Dr Valentine. The final scenes drop a hint - or perhaps that should be premonition - of what's to come in the next book. DCI Longdon, Valentine's world-weary pursuer from the first book makes a welcome reappearance here and will hopefully feature in the next book too. Might be best if he doesn't make any trips across water though...
The Hammer of Dr Valentine is another highly entertaining, and ingenious piece of writing from John Llewellyn Probert and one which I highly recommend that you purchase. Which you can do here.

No One Gets Out Alive.

No One Gets Out Alive is the latest novel from Adam Nevill and is published by Pan. His previous novels have all been tours de force of intense, frightening and highly imaginative writing and evidence that he has completely mastered the skill of creating and maintaining an intense and scary atmosphere for the whole of the longer form. The Ritual is the most intense novel I’ve ever read whilst Last Days is one of the few novels scary enough to actually make me put it down in an attempt to regain some composure. No One Gets Out Alive weighs in at over 600 pages so the big question in my mind before beginning it was whether Adam could pull off the same trick and maintain the tension for such a long time.

The answer of course is yes. No One Gets Out Alive is an exercise in mounting – and then sustained – terror that will leave you wrung out when you finish it. It’s a tough read – not because of the prose and structure, both of which are, as ever, immaculate – but because of the subject matter. It’s another seamless mix of horror arising from the darkest facets of human behaviour and the supernatural but the former means there are some brutal scenes in here which are not for the faint-hearted. (Mind you, if you’re faint-hearted, it’s highly unlikely you’d be considering this as a book to read, or reading a review on a horror blog for that matter). The violence is shocking - because it should be, and is written in such a way that the horror of what is happening impacts on the reader without ever feeling exploitative.

NOGOA has a female protagonist, repeating the pattern of Adam’s last book House of Small Shadows and his earlier novel Apartment 16 the lead character in this instance being Stephanie Booth, on her own in Birmingham, moving from one temping job to another, desperate to find somewhere cheap to live. That opportunity is provided by 82 Edgehill Road and its landlord, the wonderfully named Knacker McGuire.

There are echoes here of Adam’s short story The Angels of London in Gray Friar Press’s Terror Tales of London which featured a similar opening scenario with that story’s protagonist, Frank, renting a flat from landlord Granby – undoubtedly  a prototype upon which the more fully-fledged character of Knacker was based. Knacker is a wonderful creation, the personification of sleaziness, shuffling and slimy with just enough accent inserted into his dialogue to make it ring true and add to the characterisation. At no point does he proclaim to be “ever so ‘umble” but the obsequiousness is all too apparent nonetheless. Knacker and the accommodation at 82 Edgehill Rd are so horrible that you can’t help but scream at Stephanie to get the hell out but the author has obviously given the scenario a lot of thought and has come up with entirely plausible and, it has to be said, heart-breaking reasons why Stephanie is unable so to do.

The scares start as soon as Stephanie moves in, subtly at first with some brilliantly drawn scenes of disembodied voices, cold atmospheres and glimpses of apparitions but the horror really kicks in with a vengeance with the arrival of Knacker’s cousin Fergal, bringing with him an air of violence which all too soon becomes reality and a realisation of the true nature of what is actually going on inside the house.

Alongside the physical horror of the reality of Stephanie’s situation, the supernatural elements are also ramped up – and no one is better than Nevill at describing the decaying, scratchy, scuttling things that dwell in darkness – culminating in a powerhouse of a denoument in the house that will leave you breathless.

And then you realise there are still over two hundred pages to go…

It’s a clever move. The last section of the book allows all the exposition about the history of 82 Edgehill Rd (and its inhabitants) that would have felt bolted on and incongruous in the opening section (and which would certainly have made the task of keeping Stephanie in the house that much harder) to be presented, providing context – and creating an entirely plausible mythology along the way – for the events within the house.

A gentle coast towards the end of the book then?

Yeah, right. Remember that scene in the movie Poltergeist after the spiritualist pronounces the “house is clean”? And then what happens..? No one, reader included, gets away that easily…

No One Gets Out Alive is a fine addition to Adam Nevill’s oeuvre, another classic piece of horror fiction and evidence that here is a writer at the very top of his game. Read it if you dare. I highly recommend that you should though.

Back to Black.

All good things must come to an end and so it is with the Spectral Press serialisation of Simon Bestwick's Black Mountain. Fittingly, the end came on Hallowe'en with the release of the last installment, The Dancers in the Pines - and it's hard to believe that the saga began way back in December of 2013. I reviewed the "work in progress" here so it seems only fitting to complete that process now that the last words of the novel have been committed to... err...the virtual ether.
It's taken another six episodes to complete the story of the eponymous Welsh mountain since that last review which described the fate of Russell Ware, the journalist who'd coined the phrase "The Bala Triangle" to describe the area around Mynydd Du, a place where unexplained phenomena and mysterious deaths and disappearances are rife.
The subsequent installments follow the same pattern as the first five, presented as transcripts and testimonials, presenting the evidence accumulated by Ware and, as the progressing story reveals, earlier visitors to the region. The book as a whole is the literary equivalent of a Matroyshka doll, revealing layer upon layer of information, digging deeper and deeper into the history of the region (episode 9 - Ancient Voices - takes the story back to the Roman occupation of Britain and even then hints that the evil goes back even further than that).
I'll state again how complementary the episodic release of the story has been to this style of presentation. Each episode works as a story in its own right but also reveals enough new information to keep the reader hooked and desperate for the next installment.
The story began way back in 2013 with the introduction of the author himself as the narrator and as the book neared its conclusion I had concerns as to how this device would work. All I will say is that it does work - and in an extremely clever and entertaining way. Call it post-modern, meta-fiction even but however you look at it, it's bloody good and rounds off the ten month journey in style.
Mention needs to be made too of the stunning art work which adorns the covers of the individual episodes, provided by Neil Williams. It's great news that a print version of the complete book will be produced next year so that the art - as well as the words - can be fully appreciated. The cover image I've used for this review (episode 10, The Watcher) is my favourite of them all - and is possibly my favourite of the episodes too. I mentioned the "found footage" analogy in my previous review and this device is used within the story itself in this installment to great effect. I had to put the kindle down at one point, so effective - and downright scary - was the imagery being presented. That hasn't happened since I read Adam Nevill's Last Days - so kudos to Mr Bestwick for that.
If you haven't already, you can buy Black Mountain here (and visit the Spectral site for the first installment) - you really should.

High Seas Drifter

Never judge a book by its cover. Sage advice. Except of course if that book cover has on it the words Jeffrey Archer - in which case judging is entirely appropriate. It has to be said though that it's sometimes difficult not to appraise the merits of a book by what's presented on its cover and the art work which adorns the front of it is as important as what's contained within those covers. And yes, I know the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" is not meant to be taken literally but its use in that context allows a neat introduction for the new novella from Pendragon Press - The Derelict by Neil Williams, the context being that Neil has made a name for himself already in the small press with some astounding cover art. His credits are too many to mention here but anyone enjoying the current Terror Tales series from Gray Friar Press or Spectral's serialisation of Simon Bestwick's Black Mountain will be very familiar with his work. (Scroll down slightly and you'll see more of his work adorning the cover of Horror Uncut).
As might be expected, Neil has provided the art work for his own book and quite a cover it is too, absolutely dripping with atmosphere. The good news is, that atmosphere is created just as effectively by the words within - this is an extremely well written, and crafted piece of work.
Presented The Rime of the Ancient Mariner style, with an "old, mad drunkard" sharing his tale for the price of an ale, the story relates events surrounding the discovery by the schooner Albin Grau of the seemingly deserted brig Persephone. And yes, those names are entirely significant, Grau a production designer on a famous 1922 horror film and Persephone the daughter of Demeter, the goddess whose name was appropriated for the name of a ship in a relatively famous novel of 1897.
Nods then to iconic works from the past but also to more contemporary horrors, the discovery of the "deserted" ship referencing Event Horizon and Alien as well, of course, as the Marie Celeste. It's no surprise then that the Persephone isn't quite as deserted as it first seems.
The use of these familiar tropes in way diminishes from the power and effectiveness of the novella however. As I stated earlier, the atmosphere is beautifully created and that results in the reader becoming completely immersed in the story which unfolds. And quite a story it is too, cracking along at a fair old pace and with some brilliantly constructed set-pieces. One in particular, involving a rowing boat and rope clambering will have you on the edge of your seat.
The Derelict is a good, old-fashioned (in the best possible way) horror yarn and I had a whale of a time reading it. It's the prefect tale for a Halloween night so get one now before the end of the month. Get one anyway (which you can do via the publishers), it's a great read. The novella is available in paperback (as a limited, signed edition) or as an e-book though I would recommend the former simply for a full appreciation of the art work which adorns it.
Neil's There Shall We Ever Be was the highlight of the Ill at Ease II collection - a subtle, slow burner of a story which demonstrated his skill at creating an atmospheric piece of writing. The Derelict is further evidence of those skills and I recommend it highly.

Horror Uncut.

If one of the functions of horror fiction is to hold a mirror up to society, to reflect real life fears and concerns, then right now must feel like a literary feeding frenzy for purveyors of the weird with the global recession rumbling on and a set of austerity measures put in place by a group of millionaires suffering from the unfortunate delusion that they know what's best for everyone. Perhaps the best line of fiction to arise from the present climate is David Cameron's claim that "we're all in this together", the utter-bullshitness of which must place it high in the list of all-time How Stupid Do You Think We Are? quotations, (or the Clarkson List as it's coming to be known), but now we have Horror Uncut from Gray Friar Press which contains seventeen stories of "social insecurity and economic unease" which provides a much higher quality of fantasy writing altogether.
The collection is edited by Tom Johnstone who completed the book after the tragic death of its co-editor Joel Lane and who provides a thoughtful and insightful afterword to the stories.
Specific policies provide the inspiration for many of the stories, including Ptichka by Laura Lauro, A Simple Matter of Space by John Forth and The Ghost at the Feast by Alison Littlewood, the latter the only story in the collection to directly feature the politicians responsible in a story which examines the relationship between MP and constituent.
As an employee of the NHS I'm all too aware of just how "safe" the institution is in the hands of the present government and the threat of privatisation and its general mismanagement provide the basis for David Williams' The Procedure (which unfortunately I felt got the tone wrong and suffered from a twist that was obvious early on) and Joel Lane's A Cry for Help which opens the collection with perfectly pitched, biting satire. Funding - or lack of - for mental health services is the subject of one of the best stories in the collection, Thana Niveau's No History of Violence which ends the book on a truly chilling note.
Supernatural themes are relatively scarce for a book of horror stories but are employed most effectively in Gary McMahon's Only Bleeding (whose title gives a hint as to which metaphor is put to use in it) and Simon Bestwick's The Battering Stone, another story of his to feature the character of Paul Hearn and which hints at ancient forces feeding off misery and austerity.
Capitalism rears its ugly, greedy head in Priya Sharma's The Ballad of Boomtown and Stephen Hampton's The Sun Trap in which the family unit becomes allegory for the banking crisis in a story that's probably a little too predictable and which suffers from a few too info-dumps.
Exploitation is the keynote of Anna Taborska's The Lemmy/Trump Test, David Turnbull's The Privelige Card and another trademark John Llewellyn Probert piece The Lucky Ones. The exploitation is of the poor, by the rich - a scenario that forms the backdrop to John Howard's Falling Into Stone in which metaphor and harsh realism mix together perfectly.
 A more subtle, tangential approach to the effects of the austerity measures on individuals is exhibited in Roseanne Rabinowitz's Pieces of Ourselves and Stephen Bacon's The Devil's Only Friend, affecting ghost stories both.
Optimism of a sort is provided by Andrew Hook's The Opaque District which is set in a future where queuing for food is the norm and where protagonist Jay is offered a glimpse - a promise  - of somewhere better... Better times ahead then? Maybe not.
Horror Uncut may not change minds or influence policy but it's an excellent collection of stories that do have important things to say. It has to be said it's unlikely to appeal to Daily Mail readers - which is about as high a compliment as I can pay it.
Highly recommended.

All Change.

Mutator is the latest offering from Gary Fry and is released by DarkFuse. As expected, it's another slice of philosophical conjecture lurking within the framework of a horror story - another Frydian thesis. Previous books by Gary have focused on the dichotomy between mind and body but there's a different subject matter on display in Mutator with musings on evolutionary theory providing the backdrop to the narrative thrust.
The story centres around James who has just moved into his remote Yorkshire home with his dog, Damian. Yes, a dog called Damian. Unfortunately, it's Damian with an "a" and not Damien with an "e" thereby precluding any jokes about omens but there's plenty foreshadowing going on here - something Gary does extremely well - with encounters with spiders and distorted reflections worming their way into the reader's subconscious, subtly building a contextual framework. It's too overt to be truly subliminal but the effect is the same.
An encounter with a neighbour raises concerns over the house's previous occupant and the discovery of a hidden room containing scientific equipment and journals deepens those concerns. Things really come to a head with arrival of a small, silver ball which falls from the sky and which turns out to be spaceship containing...
Suffice to say, what it is that emerges from the ball provides the horror of the story but is also the basis of its philosophical concerns. As a cognitive scientist, James understands that it is consciousness alone which can adapt immediately to its environment via perception and learning, that the physical body is incapable of such rapid change. Until, that is, he discovers the craft's occupant.
My main criticism of Gary's previous book, Savage, was that it was too short to adequately develop the themes contained within it and I have to make the same comment about Mutator. He's created a truly original monster here with massive potential but I feel the short length of the novella means it's not fully exploited and that the plot contrivances are, as in Savage, exacerbated. I think there's massive potential for this creature and would love to see the ideas on display in Mutator evolve (ha!) into a longer form.
Don't get me wrong though, Mutator is a great read. Despite the emphasis I've given to the theoretical aspects in this review, they in no way overwhelm the story and there's plenty plot to be getting on with and enough gore and gloopiness to satisfy hardened fans of "wet work". The trend of horrible things happening to small mammals established in Savage is maintained here.
Mutator is another trademark blend of horror and philosophy - archetypal Fry - and further evidence of an author making his mark (or should that be Lamarck) in the world of weird fiction. I recommend it highly.

The End.

The End. This is the end, my only friend, the end…So sang Jim Morrison in the 1967 song bearing that ominous title. Its initial release was too early for even me to remember but the song is one of my cultural landmarks because of its use in Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece Apocalypse Now – its plangent tones accompanying the death of Colonel Kurtz, the music and lyrics providing the perfect accompaniment to the striking imagery on screen.

That was thirty five years ago (yes, I know…) but it made such an impact on me that I can’t help but hear the song whenever I hear those two words. (Pavlov – and possibly his dogs – would be proud).

So yes, there it was, running through my head when I read that the new novel from Gary McMahon shared that particular title. Whilst the song is about the end of a relationship (and various oedipal fantasies…) the book is about the end of the world – or at least mankind’s existence on it. It describes present day events surrounding the appearance of a “suicide plague” which compels huge swathes of the population to kill themselves – apocalypse now indeed.

It’s a first person narrative – a device which works brilliantly to convey the confusion as well as the horror of the situation and which also means that there are no real explanations for why what is happening is happening. There are hints and clues yes – a couple of the book’s most effective set pieces describe the appearance of messages implying that someone is to blame – but anyone seeking a full and detailed explanation will be disappointed. This is a good thing.

The narrator is Mack, in London on business when the plague hits, hundreds of miles away from his blind and pregnant wife Kay who is back home in their isolated cottage in Yorkshire. The bulk of the novel concerns Mack’s journey back home, accompanied by a small group of fellow survivors and it’s his determination to be reunited with the woman he loves that provides the emotional core of the book.

The journey is, of course, fraught with difficulty and danger. As if simply negotiating their way through traffic pile-ups caused by the mass suicides wasn’t enough, the survivors also have to contend with the “Leftovers” – zombies for all intents and purposes - who have become aggressors, determined to take as many people with them as they can, oblivious to their own horrific injuries and who provide the book’s gross-out moments in abundance. Much uncoiling of intestines is to be had…

The success of the book of course depends on the character of Mack, its narrator, and Gary does a brilliant job of creating an everyman that the reader can root for, enhancing that character with the romance between him and his wife to whom he is desperate to return. It’s therefore an incredibly bold move to, in a single scene, completely undermine the empathy and trust the reader has invested in the character when he makes a decision to follow a particular course of action.

It’s a move that works brilliantly though, shocking the reader, unsettling them and leaving them uncertain right up until the end of the book at which point context – of a sort – is provided. That’s not all the ending provides although to say more would be unfair. It’s incredibly powerful though, and deeply moving.

In the early days of this blog I referred to Gary McMahon as “The King of Bleak”. Whilst this was meant as a compliment it could also be seen as pigeon-holing or labelling –a suggestion that Gary is a “type” of writer. This, as anyone who has read his work will know, is far from the truth but, I’ll tell you what, if you do want bleak there aren’t many better as The End convincingly demonstrates.

On the surface, The End reads as an exciting horror novel – and can be enjoyed simply on that basis - but there’s real depth here too with musings on humanity itself, (and not the more benevolent interpretations of the word) with suggestions that the plague is the ultimate outcome for mankind's greed and selfishness and the destruction they inevitably result in.

The End is evidence indeed that Gary's mojo is risin' and is published by Newcon Press. You can - and I thoroughly recommend that you should - buy it here.