THE GETAWAY GOD By Richard Kadrey – Reviewed

James Stark, Sandman Slim, is working for a secret Christian agency that is intent on keeping the demons and magically infused citizens of LA in check. Meanwhile the entire world is falling apart, under a deluge of never ending rain LA is flooding and emptying out. God, the actual god, has had a breakdown and his split personalities have literally split him into various pieces, and are fighting each other. Stark trapped one part of the fractured deity down in hell, to get out of being Lucifer.

The Angra Om Ya, a powerful set of old gods, are attempting to come back while the chaos continues, and only Stark and his magic eight ball (a powerful weapon he doesn’t know how to use) can stop them.

There’s also a serial killer on the loose, cutting people up and putting them back together as vessels for the ancient gods to possess.

Can Stark work out the eight ball in time? Can he stop the serial killer? Will his girlfriend leave him? Will heaven collapse?

If you’re coming to a series six books in then I think you should be a bit lost, but Kadrey kindly provides enough explanation of the back story so that every makes sense.

The fact is, as a reader of the series, I remember all of it. I read a lot, I watch a lot, and most things pretty much trickle out of my sieve-like brain. But not Kadrey’s books. They stick in there, their weird scenes, characters and a hellish LA are imprinted on my memory. Sure, I don’t remember everything, but I remember most of it. These books are memorable, and that’s a lot more than I can say for most books.

Kadrey’s characters and writing has attitude. Stark would pick you up, slam your head against the wall, and kick you while you’re down.

The filmic quality of the books is finally realised with the new style covers for the paperbacks.

The Stark books are not likely to be anything like the books you’ve read before, and that’s more than a good thing, that’s a great thing. You don’t often find a writer who can quite tap into your nastiness and bring it out in book form, but Kadrey’s done just that.

The man is a genius, and while this isn’t the best of the Stark novels (the series does seem to be losing a bit of momentum), I’ll be sticking with it until the end, because it’s still the best urban fantasy ever.

Read and beware, you may well become addicted.

GUN MACHINE By Warren Ellis – Reviewed

Ellis writes comics normally, and not your average superhero fair, but intelligent and thought-provoking action driven comics. Like Red, that the Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren film was based upon. This is Ellis’ second novel, the first being a really weird, sex-fuelled road-book across the US.

This novel has its own share of weird too, but this time the plot is a little (really little!) more traditional. Detective Tallow watches as his partner is shot by a crazy man with a shotgun and shoots the man dead. In the apartment across the hall there is a hole in the wall caused by the shooting. On further investigating Tallow finds the mother-load of weaponry, an entire apartment decorated in guns of every kind. When he enlists the help of two CSIs to help test and record the guns they find that each of the hundreds and possible thousands of weapons have been involved in a murder. Tallow has just fallen into investigating one of the worst ever serial killers New York City has ever seen…

And that’s just the start of it: native American Indian history, conspiracies and corruption, this book contains a riveting mystery and a mass of detail that draws you in.

The first few pages of this book are quite shocking brilliant, as Ellis shows off his imaginative turn of phrase and pours on the style, which drifts into an intricate plot. Tallow is the down at heel cop who needs the brutal murder of his partner to bring him back to life, and his slightly depressive, possibly suicidal tendencies manifest in a compulsion to catch the killer at any cost, including his own life, and make the dramatic chase all the more exciting.

This is not your standard crime thriller, this is a whacked out, dope-fuelled hurricane of a crime thriller, a strange and compelling mystery. Ellis writes like a demon possessed and I can’t wait to read his next novel, bring it on.

HELL TO PAY By Shaun Hutson – Reviewed

This book from 2004, follows a similar pattern to Hutson’s other “horror’ thrillers of the time such as White Ghost.  Around this time, Huston seems to leave the supernatural horror of his previous books behind and head into this new “thriller” territory. Normally there would still be plenty of violence and disturbing gruesome descriptions (that Hutson’s known for) to up the ante on the usual thrillers out there.

Hell to Pay follows the same principles, including the various plot-lines intersecting towards the end for a climactic showdown.

Nikki Reed is in trouble, big trouble. Her and her husband owe the local gangster twenty thousand pounds, most of it spent down the bookies and gambled away, the rest spent on Playstation 2s and similar unrequired accessories. They have until the end of the week to find the money, or they’re likely to be killed by the loan shark, who is already threatening them with violence.

Roma Todd is having an affair. Her husband is virtually estranged, spending all of his time at work and providing little in the way of parental support for their ill daughter Kirsten.

Detective Inspector Fielding is called to another murder. A young boy found washed up by a lake. The third child to be killed. Is it a serial killer they are looking for or a paedophile? Or both? With few clues to follow the police are searching for any lead they can get.

So these three plot lines will eventually intersect, but the climatic action denouement that you would expect ultimately fails to be realised. There is a slight twist, but not enough to satisfy.

One of the great things about Hutson’s novels is the pop-culture references, but reading a book that’s eight years old mean searching through the annals of history. That’s not Hutson’s fault obviously, the fact the book has been lying on my shelf for eight years though is down to the dissatisfied feeling I had after reading White Ghost. That is Hutson’s fault.

Ultimately Hutson is a decent writer who has moved away from what he was good at, writing horror novels, to have a go at the more lucrative thriller market where he does not excel. Nowadays Gary McMahon does urban horror with a much better grasp of the intricacies of modern youth culture, and a better handle on violence and atmosphere.

To write off Hutson as a has-been based on a book written eight years ago is far too harsh. Some of his novels, those that I grew up with such as Nemesis, Death Day, and Relics, are classic British horror. I need to read a more recent Hutson novel to make a more informed decision, and because of his former skill he can’t be written off after a couple of decent, if not impressive, horror thrillers. Decision pending…

SERIAL KILLERS INCORPORATED By Andy Remic – Reviewed

This review is printed with the permissions of Morpheus Tales Publishing. The review originally appears in the April issue of the Morpheus Tales Supplement.

It’s not often you finish a book sweating, panting and in need of a shower. Andy Remic writes such books, exhilarating thrill rides, the perfect combination of excitement and danger. Remic’s books are not read, they are experienced, and when you get out the other side you feel like you’ve just parachuted yourself out the back of a plane or ridden a motorbike at a hundred and twenty miles an hour down a motorway. It feels like you’ve just gone three five-minute rounds (MMA style) with a huge gorilla and you’re lucky to be alive. But in a good way!

Serial Killers Incorporated follows Callaghan, a hard drinking, hard smoking, hard fucking, hard living photo-journalist for a tabloid. When he and his partner get a tip-off of a hot story they don’t expect the skinned body of a woman with her legs cut off, but that’s what they find. And there is a note to Callaghan on the course. The police want to arrest them both and interrogate them despite the evidence proving their innocence, but then Callaghan has had some run-ins with the DI and they’re not exactly friends. Callaghan’s girlfriend is also proving a problem. Or rather her Romanian gun-runner husband is about to become a problem if he finds out Callaghan is fucking his wife. Then another tip-off sends them into a dark, desolate warehouse with another body awaiting them.

The first hundred or so pages set up the characters and the scenarios, but it’s once the action starts that this book really takes off. There’s plenty of action, including multiple murders, shootouts, fighting, and car-chases.

The warehouse scene is suitable frightening and will send chills down even the hardiest of spines. Even Callaghan becomes somewhat likeable, despite being a selfish bastard.

The climax is a bit… weird… But it works because Remic’s prose style punches you in the face until you submit. Here, unlike his Clockwork Vampire series, he seems even less inhibited and more in your face than normal, which is no bad thing, but does take some getting used to. There’s not the subtlety of the Clockwork Vampire series, this is stark and brutal, and works fine for a dark, noir crime-thriller.

There are a few niggling typos and a least one continuity issue, but with a book this size (400 plus pages) it’s hardly surprising, and all can be forgiven when a book is this much FUN!

Remic has produced another fine example of how to thrill a reader. This crime thriller is dark and nasty, and that’s what makes it so good. Remic is a no-holds-barred writer and Serial Killer Incorporated is a no-holds-barred novel; massively entertaining, scary, exciting, and brutally nasty. I defy you to read it and not have a grin on your face when you’re finished.

http://anarchy-books.com

SERIAL KILLERS INCORPORATED by ANDY REMIC – Prologue

This book is dedicated to

th3 m1ss1ng

with love and funky vibes, bruvs.

 

PROLOGUE

HEAVEN S(C)ENT

 

SLOWLY, I OPEN the skinning razor, marvelling at the craftsmanship of this delicate yet lethal antique blade. I smile. This is my brother, my soulmate, my working tool without which I cannot perform. Without which, indeed, I have no function. No purpose.

I place the shining crescent against reptilian flesh. I press to cut, to slice, my breath rising in pace with anticipation, but back away at the last moment.

No. Not yet. It’s not yet time.

I breathe deep, a low long hiss like a snake. I savour the moment, the long soothing ride like the instant before ejaculation when you hang in the balance, careering out of control, feeling barely human and feeling more alive than alive.

If only you people knew; if only you understood. But you’re mis–programmed, un–encoded, deviated and twisted from a perceived normality you no longer appreciate. Yeah. Fucking deviated. That’s right.

Now… to work.

There is one I must find. He’s out there, in the real world. In your real world, at least.

He is one of you. One of your… breed.

And his name?

His name is Callaghan.

 

I have three addictions in life. Whisky, adrenalin and sex.

Whisky is what kills bad memories. Adrenalin – well, I’ve always had a love of fast cars, killer bikes and snowboarding. And sex? Hell, sex is the evil that always kick–starts my pain.

And that’s why I’m here, standing on the eighteenth floor balcony of Glasgow’s Riviera 5–Star, staring down at the Clyde with my balls cupped protectively in both hands as the cold does its best to turn me into a corpse. I’m naked. Shit. That’s not good.

Let me introduce myself.

My name’s Callaghan, I’m a hard drinking, womanising, no good son–of–a–bitch. I live for today, take any designer drug in the world, fuck anything that moves and steal anything that doesn’t… and to hell with consequences! Baby, I’m the man who put head into hedonism. Sex into sexuality. The cunt into cuntinental. And… as I stand here, skin tinged blue, Glasgow lights fluttering like pearls scattered over velvet, the wind shrieks a surreal mocking laugh at my dangerous predicament in a rhythmical wail. A song for the condemned. Yeah. That’s me. Condemned.

I glance down at my own trembling, worthless carcass; can idly observe the wind has turned my fingers rigid, skin a network of disintegrating lace. My feet sit splayed on a plate of cracked ice and I’m vibrating so hard it hurts. I think my teeth will judder from my stupid, jack–hammer skull.

I squint miserably as short terriers of snow snap my face. I grimace, coughing ice–air, and wonder how long I’m going to have to wait, freezing, dying, and eventually I hear a noise inside the apartment and my thoughts drift back to Him. And Her.

Him. Vladimir. The bastard.

I half turn, scowl at the balcony doors with their delicate wooden shutters which, despite opulent triple–glazing, fail to muffle the sounds of grunting as Vlad mounts and ravages his beautiful wife. Only a few moments ago it was I – yes I – who brought her moaning and screaming and thrashing to a bed–thumping skin–tearing head–pounding teeth–grinding arching sweating heaving multiple fucking climax.

I try to close my ears to her mocking echoes of pleasure.

She better be faking it, I think sourly. But I know she isn’t.

‘That son of a bitch.’

I press iced fingers over my flapping mouth in horror as staccato words leap unbidden from twitching lips. What are you doing? I scream silently at myself, an internal mockery. The brainless, contemptuous of the insane. Do you want to get caught? And of course I don’t, because as much as I like fucking Vladimir’s wife, and as much as she thoroughly enjoys being fucked by me, and yes, much as I hate Vladimir with a venom more deadly than any rattlesnake… well, I have to admit it, Vladimir Katchevsky, former Bucharest gang–lord running guns between Romania, the UK and the Middle East in a cleverly constructed triangulation of players, contraband and excessive finance, is one superbly evil and dangerous bastard of a bastard. Carrying twin Techrim 11mm pistols he’s killed thirty–four people to date. Thirty four that I know about… dangerous information – of which I’d rather be ignorant – and obtained through intimate drunken bedside chit–chat with the pretty and prettily voluptuous Sophie. Ahh Sophie! She of the velvet hair, opal eyes and wide, generous (yeah, very generous) mouth.

‘Shit, shit, shit,’ I mutter as I move to the balcony rail, burnished steel supporting square panels of toughened glass. The view below is sweeping, grand, a dark pastel vista stuttering beneath huge folding blankets of snow that whip first one way, then the other.

I lean against the rail, and it’s so cold it almost strips the skin from my fingers. I yelp and suck digits, injecting warmth. The muscles in my jaw tighten in anger. I glance back at the closed doors and the heat and love and sex – and death – within.

I am tempted to try and sneak through the room. Then I remember the 11mm Techrims.

Options? Well, arse–hole, in about three minutes you’re gonna freeze to death. Try and head through the hotel room and Vlad will beat you senseless – and, if you’re lucky – fill you full of 11mm rounds. But if you’re unlucky…

I shiver. I’d heard the stories.

So then. Avenues of insanity? Despite jumping, the only other option available to my skinny naked rump is to climb down.

The wind slaps me like an irate lover.

Savages me. Beats me. Rapes me.

Bare feet pad across marble and I glance down again, wishing this was all a bad dream and praying the horror would go away. I grit my teeth, try to be brave (but it’s hard, so hard!), grasp cold metal and lift my face to inhale fresh bright snow. I blink away tears and cock my leg over the steel bar, trying my best not to drag dangling vulnerable balls against liquid nitrogen. I wobble and shake for a few seconds, and my other leg manages the treacherous traverse.

And there’s me, stood on the bastard side of oblivion. I say to myself don’t look down, don’t look down because I know it’s the thing you’re supposed to say. But I look down anyway and whimper like a little girl as I realise, shit, I can’t do this. I just can’t do it. But I have to. I must. Or I’ll die.

I shuffle along the ledge. It feels like a 2mm concrete strip under fat stupid tip–toes. But hey, it’s 2mm I’m thankful for. Better 2mm than 11mm, right? I try to lick my lips but cracked skin brings an agony of burning.

Inside the hotel room Sophie wails a long, ululating song of pleasure. Yet more rhythmical thumping ensues.

Around me, the snowfall increases in density. Cold settles across my shoulders like a vellum shroud. My foot slips, toe–nails rasping harsh on concrete and sending sparks of pain igniting my shin. I struggle like a rape–victim, find my footing and grin like a masturbating baboon. Flurries of snow pulse across the sky, obscuring most of city. I’ve always loved Glasgow, but I never wanted to die there.

I slide my hands down the frozen rails and meticulously adopt a squatting position – like a Tibetan monk taking a shit over The Abyss. I fight my stubborn frozen knees onto the ledge and my penis, despite being horrifically retracted to resemble a limp worm in the snow–light, slaps painfully against a glass panel.

‘Yeah, thanks God,’ I mutter, tears freezing to my cheeks. I try so hard not to feel bitterness. I fail. ‘Thanks a shit–load, dickhead. Perhaps you’d like to make my life even harder, eh?’

I attempt to peer below me, below the balcony to which I cling. But the world is a shadow, zig–zagged with snow. I perform a strange backward shuffle, feel a momentary weightlessness as knees slide uncontrollably over the icy ridge and I emit a comedy squawk, funny to everyone except me, and then proceed to hang there, dangling, biceps and shoulders straining, rocked and buffeted by a merciless storm.

Fear is a fist of lead in my mouth. The balcony crushes my forearms and I feel numbed fingers sliding. My chin touches the balcony lip and I hang for a few moments, eyes at floor level, able at last to witness the luxury bedroom so recently vacated. I can see naked feet. Vladimir’s feet. They are joined by smaller feet, beautiful feet, Sophie’s feet. Feet which have lovingly caressed me, pampered me, stroked me towards moaning, groaning, beautiful ejaculation. Shit. And there they are: perfect, sculpted, the last damn thing I’ll see before I –

die.

I blink. I kick my legs, but hey guess what, it’s not my lucky day and whaddya know? I can’t reach the fucking lower balcony. I just cannot believe this, cannot digest this damn basic bad luck. I kick around aimlessly for a while, thrashing like a hang–victim, just knowing I have to reach the lower balcony because there’s no way I can climb back up and nowhere else to go. Except maybe down. By the quickest and most direct route. Yeah. As the Cal flies, so to speak.

This chills me. Chills me more, anyway.

I stop kicking and hang limp, a butchered carcass in the slaughter house.

I hear Sophie’s laughter, a ghost–wail sent to taunt me, haunt me, and make mockery of my foolish bloody existence.

I look up, snow settling on my skin and making eyelashes flutter.

What did I do to deserve this, God? What? What? What? But I know the answer to that very bitter question. It’s a simple one. And the answer is: everything.

I’m an absolute bastard.

That’s the simple honest truth.

I admit it openly to myself and I nod (or would had done, if my chin wasn’t bearing my bodyweight). I fuck anything that moves. I drink myself stupid. I take any drug on offer – and hey, don’t I just enjoy that social kudos? I treat my friends and family like shit. In fact, worse than shit, because I don’t even pause to scrape my sole after a good stomping.

I abuse my money, my power, my job, and I (whisper it in horror) defraud the tax man. I am a perfection of narcissism. A child of capitalism. A whore of the contemporary world. But listen, man, I’m just the way the world made me, right? A product: of social deviation, mental deprivation, and psychological masturbation. Everyone’s fucking doing it. So that makes it OK. That makes it sane.

‘Cal?’ The voice belongs to Sophie and I snap out of my dying reverie. I remember the pain in my arms. And bizarrely, I feel suddenly vulnerable with my useless shrunken tackle dangling over the void. My legs swim around a little, as if treading treacle porridge. ‘Callaghan? Where the hell are you?’

‘Down here,’ I growl through a throbbing jaw.

Sophie steps onto the balcony wrapped in a silk gown. Her face registers shock when she is witness to my bungling attempt at non–escape. That look at least gives me a tiny moment of pleasure; seeing her panic. It’s her fault, after all! She damn–well promised me Vlad was out of the country.

Sophie moves forward, hands outstretched to help me climb back up… and I congratulate myself at rescue, thinking, Thank God, yes! Thank you God, I owe you a double whisky! Hey, maybe even a triple! However, The Big Man has his own sordid agenda.

‘Petal, what are you doing out here?’

Sophie alters her rescue trajectory – so that she leans against the rail, turning to smile at her husband. I watch thick–set boots step onto the balcony behind her elegant, smooth legs. I glance up. The boots are all the huge, scarred Romanian is wearing.

‘Just getting some fresh air, my love. You make me so… breathless with your wonderful love–making!’

Vladimir flexes powerful hairy shoulders, takes exaggerated gulping lungfuls of Scottish chill, and laughs a booming laugh from the cavernous cavity of his broad, bullet–pocked chest. ‘Ahh, you behave a little strange tonight, no? Come inside, you will freeze to death out here.’

‘I’m OK, my sweet little Vladdy (I want to be sick!), I just need a moment to regain my composure.’

Yes baby yes! I cheer.

‘Then I will stand out here with you, you crazy, horny, sexual wife creature,’ he nuzzles her, runs a hot tongue down her cheek, ‘and we will both enjoy a refreshing cigarette, no?’ Vladimir disappears to get his smokes.

Oh shit, I groan.

‘I’m going to fall!’ I hiss at Sophie through clenched teeth. ‘Keep the dumb bastard inside!’

Vlad reappears with a packet of Sobranie Blacks, taps one free and manages somehow to light the smoke against the wildness of the storm. I catch a tantalising whiff, and nicotine craving sends me mad. God, what I would give for a smoke right now! A dying man’s last request? You bet. As if we ever get that luxury.

Sophie guides Vlad back inside by taking hold of his cock and  fluttering eyelash promises, and there is a distinctive click as doors shut. My arms are seriously numb and I curse a hedonistic lifestyle promoting muscular weakness as I struggle with slippery metal bars. I kick like crazy as I grunt and push and heave, and by some bastard miracle manage to get my elbows onto the balcony ledge. I take a moment to savour the irony of the situation, and acknowledge my grinding emulation of sex would have made quite a comical sight from below. Jackass? You bet.

Before the sweat can dry on my ice–rimed back I fight my way onto the balcony and hurl myself wearily over the rail to lie, shivering like a clubbed seal on the slick marble. I want to sob. So much pain! Instead, I curl into a foetal position, rock onto my knees, stagger to my feet and press myself against the door.

I’m coming in you bastards, whether you’re watching or not! I realise I have little option. I giggle to myself – in lunacy, and in idiocy. Now I’ll have to face the cobalt eyes of those Techrims. Shit and black death.

Slowly, my cumbersome sausage fingers fumble. I ease the patio door open and slide within accompanied by a gust of winter. But Vlad and Sophie don’t notice because they’re hard at it again, Sophie clawing her husband’s back and drawing blood, both of them wriggling and pounding like feeding thrashing eels in jelly.

I stand, allowing the welcome warmth to flood into iced limbs. It is an orgasm I never expected. I clench my jaw to stop teeth juddering. I totter forward a few steps and halt, shivering, wondering whether I have the time to search for my clothing… then I see the black gleam of a Techrim 11mm pistol on top of the TV and it brings me jarring back to reality. The gun has a terrible, worn look about it. Like it’s been used. A lot.

Despite everything (including stupidity) I don’t want to die.

I make a grab for where I think my clothing might be, then drop to my hands and knees and make for the door. I stand again, see the white oval of Sophie’s face peeking over Vlad’s shoulder. She is staring fixedly at me through the gloom, and suddenly starts to scream and claw in the throes of a covering ecstasy… as I open the door and ease free, closing it on well–oiled hinges.

I breathe… once more.

I stand in the corridor as the enormity of the last thirty minutes club me in the back of the head. Nausea swamps me and for a couple of minutes I lean against the wall, wheezing, debating whether or not to throw up. Then I realise my still highly dangerous location; I pull on DKNY jeans and my Dolce & Gabbana silk shirt with the black lace cuffs. I pat car keys in my pocket and head bare foot down the long corridor –

as the door at the far end opens to disgorge a muscular black–suited individual – could only be one of Vladimir’s bodyguards – bulky and struggling to hide sub–machine gun hardware beneath expensive Italian tailoring. He strides towards me purposefully and I consider urinating.

I keep my head down, mooch past the slab and risk a covert glance back but the man isn’t even looking at me. I’m just some rich drugged arse in jeans and slime heading for the bar. A stoner junkie dickhead worth not even a second glance. Threat? What threat? Not in the face of an Uzi!

I stumble through regulation fire–doors and into the lift; the journey nauseates and I shuffle like an armless leper into the hotel foyer. I locate the toilets and heave the remnants of a sautéed steak into a luxury basin. I spend a few minutes cleaning up, then stare at bloodshot eyes in the mirror. They are somebody else’s. Somebody who’s just crossed No Man’s Land. They stare back at me, accusing; as if to say you fucking idiot lunatic.

I head from the Riviera, pad down sweeping marble steps and locate my yellow Porsche 911 GT3. The blip of the alarm is a welcome friend and I sink into embracing leather, lock the doors – and breathe with release. My hand strokes yellow leather highlights by the handbrake. Ahhh. It’s good to be home, baby.

‘My God, that was close.’

I shiver, and for a while contemplate the concept of mortality.

I locate Malboros and ignite an evil smoke with shaking fingers. I inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. A rhythm of addiction. My head flutters with trapped butterflies. I feel sick again. Not in the fucking Porsche! I fire the motor and pull away, hands locked claws on the steering wheel as I contemplate and relive my close encounter with Mr Death. Then I laugh, a long hard yapping which seems to go on and on and on and has little to do with humour. It’s a brittle laugh. Like glass shattering.

‘Yeah.’ I nod like a nodding dog, and smoke like I’m on fire. ‘At least I got away with it!’

 

Snow dropped on surges of snapping wind and skittered like lace across black tarmac. A Mercedes CLK with tinted windows roared into life. Lights found ignition. Wheels cut economically through the slush as it accelerated discreetly after the dwindling tail–lights of the Porsche 911 GT3… away from the frozen banks of the Clyde and towards the beckoning M8 motorway beyond.

 

The full novel is available as an ebook from www.anarchy-books.com

For more information on the ultra talented Andy Remic  go check out www.andyremic.com

Serial Killers Incorporated PROMO VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXANP6GMzRQ

A review of Serial Killers Incorperated by Andy Remic will appear in the April Issue of the FREE Morpheus Tales Supplement! www.morpheustales.com

NEKROPOLIS By Tim Waggoner – Reviewed

On the cover SF Site says this is an “exciting mystery”, well, I’m not sure what book they were reading, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this one. This isn’t so much a mystery as a travelogue or an adventure.

Mathew Richter is a zombie, he’s a dead detective who followed a serial killer and warlock to the dark world of Nekropolis, the underworld where all manner of creatures live and non-live. Nekropolis is an amazing land, filled with vampires, were-creatures, witches and warlocks, talking insects, and the aforementioned zombies and other creatures of the dead. It’s a riot of Tim Burton-esque touches that will appeal to any horror and fantasy fan. A kind of really dark Harry Potter world, Diagon Alley after Voldemort takes over!

Anyways, back to the story. Mathew is contacted by a hot blond half-vampire who is in charge of her father’s – one of the five dark lords who rules Necropolis – collection of rare magical artefacts. One of the items in the collection is a powerful magical crystal capable of destroying the entire city, and today just happens to be Decension Day, when the five dark lords and Father Dis (the god and creator of Nekropolis), join forces to re-energise Umbriel, the dark moon that lights the city. And the artefact has gone missing.

So the meagre plot involves Mathew and his half-vampire friend searching the city of Nekropolis to find the artefact. But this is not about plot, it’s much more about exploring the amazing world of Nekropolis. Our protagonist is really the city, and whilst Richter and his squeeze are fairly well developed, there’s not really much to any of the other characters, and many of the citizens only make a brief appearance.

The book fails on many levels, the plot not the least as our hero goes round the entire city meeting up with someone to ask a few questions and then moving on to the next clue, and working his way round the city. The trail of clues (if you can call it that, some are tenuous to say the least!) is fairly easy to follow, or the next trip just takes them to another unexplored section of the city, seemingly at random. There isn’t really a mystery, and there’s no overall tension apart from the situational type as Richter finds himself in some sticky situations during his investigation.

But it’s still so much fun to discover the city. It’s like entering the world of nightmare, which since this book was originally written, has been explored by Tim Burton, Harry Potter and Hellboy. But this manages to be just a little darker than all of those and is all the better for it.

With a decent plot and some new material this book could be scarily good! Well, the good news is that the second and third books have been commissioned! Excellent.

Despite its failures this is still a bloody good book, and you’re unlikely to read anything else like it. It will make you grin with delight and make you want to visit the strange world of Nekropolis. It’s the perfect travel-guide, it’s just not the best novel.

ENDLESS NIGHT By Richard Laymon – Reviewed

Straight from the start this is typical Laymon, hard, fast and tension-filled.

Jody Fargo is sixteen and having a sleepover at her friend Evelyn’s house when Evelyn hears something and wakes Jody up. Evelyn tries to persuade Jody to go with her to check on the noise, or wake up her father for him to check, when a huge fat man enters the bedroom and puts a spear through the middle of Evelyn. He mustn’t have seen Jody because he leaves with Evelyn skewed on his pole and joins his friends having fun killing Evelyn’s parents. Jody rushes to Evelyn’s little brother’s bedroom and finds his alive, together they must escape the group of killers in a run for their lives that will last much longer than just the night…

The two young survivors are stalked by the serial killer Simon Quirt, one of the gang of killers who massacred Evelyn’s family, with only Jody’s dad, a cop, and his female friend to help them.

Tightly written, fast-paced and action-packed, Laymon manages to squeeze a whole load of tension into the three hundred pages. The characters are all pretty good, but film good, not Stephen King good.

The main killer Simon Quirt gets his own piece of the action, recording his thoughts on a tape recorder throughout so we get his warped version of events, which helps no end at cranking up the tension.

As with other Laymon novels it’s got a very film-like quality, simple story, action-driven plot, tense edge of your seat stuff. Standard Laymon is still better than most horror novels. But there’s no depth, little character development. You finish reading the book thinking that was good, and you have been entertained, but that’s it.

OK, so some bits are a little ridiculous, but are there to help the story along or work to increase the tension and feel a bit heavy handed. But they still work.

From the Laymon canon this is slightly above average, but he always delivers. The last Laymon book I read, Blood Games, wasn’t a patch on this. It you like your books fast, action-packed and gruesome then you can’t go far wrong, just don’t expect a masterpiece.

THE KULT By Shaun Jeffrey – Reviewed

THE KULT By Shaun Jeffrey

www.leucrotapress.com

 

It’s rare that I get excited by a book, but Shaun Jeffrey’s The Kult really grabbed me.

The book was sitting on my sofa when my girlfriend picked it up and started flicking through, the next thing I know she’s over a hundred pages in and won’t let me have it back. My girlfriend doesn’t read horror, SF or fantasy, she reads romances and crime thrillers and she’s usually not willing to deviate despite my best attempts to educate her. She’ll gladly watch a horror film with me, hiding behind her hands, but I’ve not seen her manage ten pages of a novel before throwing it back at me and spitting, “that’s disgusting!”

So when I discovered she was a hundred and twenty pages in after only one day, I asked for it back so that I could review it and was a little taken aback when she said I could have it when she was finished and not until. I had to pry it from her cold dead fingers, but it was worth it!

Prosper Snow is a detective on the hunt for a serial killer called The Oracle. The Oracle is a nasty piece of work who sends photos of his mutilated victims to alert the police. He leaves no clues, no bodies, nothing for the investigating team to work with except the photos. And the photos of the bodies are starting to pile up.

When one of Prosper’s oldest friends enlists the help of their revenge group, called The Kult, he has little choice but to help out. But this time the retribution the group is seeking isn’t a simple beating to avenge a bullying as in the past, like when they were kids, when the group started. This time it’s vengeance for a rape. And the penalty for the perpetrator is death.

From the start this is a dark and atmospheric story that absorbs the reader. This is a mystery that keeps you guessing as Prosper and his friends are drawn further into the machinations of the serial killer, eventually finding themselves on the hit list. The tension continues to ramp up as members of The Kult turn up dead and we run out of suspects.

This is edge of your seat stuff and it’s difficult to put the book down as you haveto keep going. I polished the three hundred odd pages off in two days, and read the finale with a grin on my face, loving every minute of it. The final few pages will see you sighing with relief as you travel through the novel with the protagonist and feel his every effort to remain alive.

Just thinking about The Kult fills me with excitement, it’s like the feeling you get coming out of the cinema after watching a really good film, you feel alive. You just want to dive back in and experience it all again.

When I started reading this book I was thinking about making references to the British best-seller Shaun Hutson, whose novels are also fast-paced, action packed and furiously tension-filled. Jeffrey shares these attributes, his story is similar brutal and nasty as well, but The Kult leaves you not only deeply satisfied but also somehow wanting more.