Mystery thrillers in days of smoke and soot

Seeing as there's been a delay on the next Heck novel, I didn't want this autumn to pass without any kind of publication from me. So I've taken the opportunity to club together a bunch of stories that are among my favourites and have now released them as an e-collection, MAJOR CRADDOCK INVESTIGATES, the cover to which you'll find left, superbly illustrated, as always, by Neil Williams.

(Before I say any more about this, just a quick note to the effect that I recently read Stav Sherez's excellent and uber-grim crime novel ELEVEN DAYS, and there's a full review of it at the bottom of this column).

My Major Craddock novellas, which I mostly penned in the late 1990s and early 2000s, are a combination of police thriller, period fantasy and gothic horror. They follow the enquiries of a Victorian-era copper, the recently widowed Major Jim Craddock, who after he leaves the British Army in India returns to his native Lancashire, now a blackened wasteland of cotton mills, coal mines, squalor and deprivation, to head up the local detective division.

There are many routine police matters to deal with - robbery, murder, rape, crimes as common in the 1860s as they are now, if not more so given the extreme poverty that so much of the population was forced to dwell in. But there are other things to deal with too, stranger things. Craddock saw much that was inexplicable during his time in the Raj, a land of magic, mystery and ancient belief. So he is better placed than most to deal with crimes back in Britain that possess apparent occult or supernatural aspects. So it's a very good thing that he's arrived when he has.

There was only one Craddock novella originally: The Magic Lantern Show, which, in his review of it, best-selling US author, Brian Hodge, said: "Finch places considerable stock in atmosphere, and builds fear and unease well with a judicious balance between what is seen, unseen and merely hinted at. A welcome new voice from across the pond."

This was lavish praise indeed from a master of his trade like Hodge, and it helped convince me that in Craddock we had a potentially reusable character. In addition, the background of smoke, fire and soot in Britain's industrial north during the 19th century was just too interesting not to revisit.

The result was three more Craddock novellas, all of which are now included in MAJOR CRADDOCK INVESTIGATES.

Aside from The Magic Lantern Show, which first appeared in The Dark Satanic in 1999, they are: Shadows In The Rafters, which was first published in By The Gas Flame Flickering in 2000, The Weeping In The Witch Hours, which first appeared in Darkness Rising in 2003 (edited by the indefatiguable Maynard & Sims), and The Coils Unseen, which is original to this collection.

They've perhaps been tidied and tightened up a little bit since their original publication, but they still reach a word-count of approximately 70,000, so they've rather neatly formed a complete book. Only one of them, The Magic Lantern Show, is set at Christmas, but I like to think they all have that 'Dickensian ghost story' feel, so they could well be a fun thing to get your hands on as we wind the year down towards the festive season.

MAJOR CRADDOCK INVESTIGATES is available for download now and HERE at a cost of £1.99. In case you still aren't convinced, here are a few excerpts from its contents:

“I’m going to enjoy delivering this bastard to the Assizes,” Craddock said, gazing down on the strangled woman.
     The lanterns of two constables cast a wavering glow on her filthied corpse. She was sitting against a wall at a junction of two alleyways, her head hanging at a hideous angle. Her ragged dress was in disarray, her greying hair in matted locks. Once again, the neck was blackened and torn by fingers of steel. The expression on her muddied face was almost too ghastly to look at.

“Has she been used?” Munro asked of the various constables gathered there. “Has anyone looked?”

Tough and granite-faced as they were, they shrugged sheepishly. It was easy to understand their dilemma. A multitude stared out and down from the surrounding windows; in all adjoining passages, dark groups of locals were being held back. It wasn’t the done thing for peelers to be caught peeping under a woman’s skirt, even if she had just been slaughtered by some demented person.

“The doctor can do that when he arrives,” the major said. He knelt beside the body, his face grave. His voice lowered to a monotone. “Gentlemen – there is a monster among us. We must step very carefully from here on in ...”

The Magic Lantern Show

Major Craddock and Sergeant Rafferty gazed in disbelief at the thing that hung in front of them. It had once been a human, but was now dried-out, crinkled, withered to a papery husk, as if every drop of juice had been forcibly drained. What was nore, it was bound and suspended as though on a gibbet, though no gibbet Craddock recalled had ever been set up in the depths of a railway shed. The ropes binding the skeletal thing were ancient and frayed but ran tautly up into the high, black rafters, form which it was now plain that other atrocities dangled. Rafferty held the lamp aloft in order to see better. Some of them were high, some of them low, but in every case it was the same story: withered skin, exposed bones, shreds of old clothing.
     "Christ loves a Christian," the sergeant breathed. "What evil are we seeing here?"
     Even in his gloves, Major Craddock reached only gingerly to touch the shrivelled face in front of them. Strands of carrot-red hair hung down over empty eye sockets. Though all the features were creased and leathery, it was easy to see that the mouth was disfigured by a gruesome harelip. 
     "This ... this is Fred Childs," he said. "Good God, this boy can only have been dead a few days."
     Rafferty shook his head. "That's impossible!"
     "Something's drunk him dry."

Shadows In The Rafters

The doctor had ordered the dead men photographed specifically because of the expressions they’d been wearing, which were truly horrible: masks of agony and fear, their mouths yawning open, their eyes clenched shut, their brows and cheeks set rigid and furrowed. Only once had Craddock seen such a thing before. In Oudh, on the sub-continent, he’d watched two criminals who’d attempted to assassinate the maharaja be staked out on the ground and then trampled by trained elephants. It had been a gruesome display indeed, but these faces very closely reminded him of it.

“Whatever killed these men was ghastly,” he said, thinking aloud.

“Whatever killed these men did so by acute heart failure,” Doctor Benedict replied. “Nothing more.”

“You performed full post-mortems?”

“Of course.”

“And did either man have a physical condition that might have caused it?”

“The older’s chap’s arteries were bunged up with calcium. I doubt he’d have lived too much longer in any case.”

“And the younger chap?”

Benedict became pensive. “More difficult. He seemed to be in the pink. But one can’t second-guess the human heart. If it stops, it stops … there’s no arguing with it.”

“And what might cause it to stop?” Craddock asked. “Assuming the medical ailments were lacking.”

“Shock would be the obvious thing.”

“That would be physical shock? Trauma?”

“Or emotional shock. But that’s rare. Extremely rare.”

“But it happens?” Craddock said. “There is a possibility that someone could actually be frightened to death?”

Benedict took off his spectacles. “It would have to be terror beyond imagining.”

Craddock considered. That wasn’t an especially pleasant thought.

The Weeping In The Witch Hours

The ballast had finally fragmented, and an immense, gelatinous something was slowly writhing free of its clutches.

It would have been impossible for either man, given the brief time he stood there, to offer a complete description of the abomination they now beheld. But they caught fleeting glimpses of translucent, tentacle-like protuberances oozing up through the rubble, and in the central area – where Krugg had drained his victims, and then died himself – a blob-like focal point, a quivering mound of vitreous flesh slowly forcing itself upwards, palpitating, glistening – and at the same time glowing, for it was from this very thing that the eerie, oceanic light seemed to emanate. Yet, phosphorescence wasn’t the only thing the monstrosity contained. In the very midst of it, in the thickest part, directly below the emergent point – the head, if such a thing could be called a ‘head’ – the two officers saw a human figure deeply embedded. Preposterous though it seemed, this figure appeared to be riding the creature, or at least controlling it; a demonic human agent safely encased at the globular core, issuing commands through malignant thought-impulses.

Of course all this was fantasy, and unhinged fantasy at that.

The enclosed figure was neither riding nor controlling anything. It wasn’t even moving – not of its own accord, for it was no longer sentient. It wasn’t just dead, it was long dead, little more than bones and carrion. Yet it struck the two officers with horror all the same, for though many of its clothes had faded and rotted away, they were still recognisable as the ragged remnants of a French naval uniform.

“Holy Christ!” Munro screamed. “HOLY JESUS CHRIST!”

The Coils Unseen

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THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS ...

An ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller and horror novels) – both old and new – that I've recently read and enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum, but by the definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything about these pieces of work in advance of reading them, then this part of the blog may not be for you. You have been warned.

ELEVEN DAYS by Stav Sherez (2013)

When a small convent burns down in a quiet corner of West London and the ten nuns who lived there are incinerated alive, there is shock and horror – even more so when it becomes apparent the fire was started deliberately. However, this is not just a tragic case of arson. When DI Jack Carrigan and DS Geneva Miller are ordered to investigate, they quickly uncover a number of bewildering mysteries. Why did the nuns just accept their terrible fate, seemingly making no effort to escape? Why was there an unidentified 11^th corpse in the ashes; as it transpires, the corpse of Emily Maxted, an angry and rebellious young woman who normally would never be seen anywhere near a church? And where is the mysterious Father McCarthy, the priest who supposedly tended to the nuns’ spiritual needs and a man with a shadowy past?

Under pressure from their superiors, in particular the narcissistic Assistant Chief Constable Quinn, to close the case quickly, preferably before Christmas – which is 11 days away – Carrigan and Miller embark on a difficult, time-pressured enquiry, which rapidly opens up into something enormous and, as it soon comes to involve South American politics, radical theology and ruthless Albanian gangsters, more perilous than anything they’ve experienced before.

If that isn’t enough, the Machievellian politics of both the Metropolitan Police and the Roman Catholic Church provide numerous distractions and in some cases near insurmountable obstacles. Lots of people have things to hide, it seems, and some have no intention of going down without taking large chunks of the world with them …

This is a labyrinthine tale, but a completely compelling one, so cleverly written by Sherez that almost every chapter either sparks a new revelation or ends on a genuine cliff-hanger. It is also a very mature novel, painted in shades of grey in that, though it does feature some of the nastiest villains I’ve come across in quite a while, there is scarcely a character in it who doesn’t have some angle, some issue, who by personal necessity is failing to follow the straight and narrow. The various political and religious activists, for example, are exceedingly well drawn – portayed largely as idealists, whose motivations are often to be lauded and yet whose zealotry has completely clouded their judgement. In an age of easy targeting, it’s a relief to see so sensitive a subject handled in such a grown-up manner.

On top of that, the whole book is played out in a near-Dickensian atmosphere of heavy snow, bitter frost and the impending Christmas season, which gives it an almost otherworldly feel (and not necessarily a pleasant one, as both our main protagonists think they are facing the festive days alone). 

Carrigan and Miller make great heroes, both still vulnerable after suffering personal sadness and yet stoic and determined, and, despite differing in professional terms, dealing quite manfully with the clear if unspoken feelings they are developing for each other. They are especially challenged in this story, as they are frequently dealing with elite-level opponents to whom their police status is meaningless – which makes you cheer all the more for them as they gradually progress the investigation (though quite often, and very realistically in terms of the frustration caused, it’s often a case of one step forward and three steps back).

One of the most intriguing and suspense-laden police thrillers I’ve read in quite a while, and despite the grimness of the concept, almost poetic in the quality of its penmanship. Hugely deserving of its critical acclaim.

As usual, purely for fun you understand, here are my picks for who should play the leads if Eleven Days ever makes it to the screen (it would be the second in the series, A Dark Redemption coming first, but let’s do it anyway):

DI Jack Carrigan – Clive Owen

DS Geneva Miller – Eva Green

Donna Maxted – Emma Watson

Roger Holden – Ben Kinglsey

ACC Quinn – Tom Wilkinson

Father McCarthy – Ken Stott

Viktor – Jerome Flynn

Grim tales from the darker end of the year

Okay ... it's THAT time of year again. Summer is finally over. The vibrant greens and yellows of the August leafage transform to red and orange. The mornings turns fresher and cooler, the nights arrive earlier and earlier - soon they are intruding into the very afternoon. Mist starts to linger on our woodland paths. And our thoughts turn slowly but surely to the darker side of the human experience ...

It's amazing how many tellers of sinister tales have taken inspiration from the autumn months. I'm sure this harks back to those centuries-old traditions, our Norse, Saxon and Celtic ancestors having gathered the harvest and, finding themselves with nothing else to do for the next few months, crowding around the longhouse hearth, drinking ale and mead and filling each other's heads with lurid tales about the evil beings cavorting in the icy darkness outside.

The waning of the year has always exerted an eerie fascination on the minds of men. It's quite understandable given that we were once exclusively an agrarian society. In those days, the return of autumn to our land, with its cold nights, tumbling leaves and grey fogs, foreshadowing the onset of winter, during which time everything seemed to die, was in itself a terrifying prospect. In an age minus gas fires and electric lighting, when no medication was available with which to treat those innumerable cold weather ailments, just surviving the season could be a real challenge. For a superstitious people, it was easy to believe that this new harsh regime was the natural abode of goblins, ghouls and other evil spirits.

This folk memory clearly lingers in our modern tradition for autumn and winter spook stories.

Some of the best scary fiction I've ever read has mined this exact seam. One little-known tale, Hannah of the Fields by Carey Curtis Smith, made a lasting impression on me; after I'd read it, I knew I'd never look at the Harvest Festival the same way again. Meanwhile, one of the truly best horror stories ever written, Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, pits young Jim Nightshade against the 'Autumn People', who, under the guidance of the malevolent Mr. Dark, seem to encompass everything magical, mysterious and menacing about those shortening, gloomy days at the end of the year.

At the same time, Ramsey Campbell's exquisite little suburban horror story, The Guy, perfectly captures the haunting atmosphere on November 5, when British kids, for some reason never completely understood abroad, are permitted to make effigies of human beings and gleefully burn them on bonfires (though this version of the annual event is augmented with several of Campbell's own typically grotesque innovations). Likewise, Halloween - the big daddy of all autumn festivals - has provided the backdrop to some nightmarish stories, not least another of the finest ever written, Casting The Runes by M.R. James, which was eventually adapted as an equally memorable Halloween-set movie, Night of the Demon.

Of course, as these twin-subjects of Bonfire Night and Halloween testify, autumn wouldn't be autum without its special days and customs.

And yet, how many of these twisted occasions actually are there?

A couple of years ago, to mark the publication of my novel SACRIFICE, in which DS Mark Heckenburg pursues a gang of killers who are 'honouring' special days and customs with sadistic and yet very appropriate human sacrifices, I wrote a piece for this blog about the rites of spring, and how there were so many strange and uncanny traditions during March, April and May that that was by far the best time of year in which to set such a book. Consquently, it didn't come as a complete surprise to me to discover that the atumn - which gets most people's vote as the spookiest time of year - is not quite so well-endowed.

In actual fact, I'd first realised this back in 2009, when writing my novella, Season of Mist, which at this time is no longer in print, though it may still be possible to find copies of WALKERS IN THE DARK - the ASH-TREE PRESS collection in which it first appeared - available online (I do intend to put this right, by the way - hopefully there'll be an e-release sometime soon). Season of Mist concerned a bunch of school-age children in the industrial North of England, and how they became convinced that the crimes of a local serial killer were the work of a demon inadvertantly released from a derelict coalmine. It was set during the September, October and November of 1974, and my original intent was to utilise as many eerie autumn customs as I could. But ultimately, with the exception of one or two curiosties - Braughing Old Man's Day on October 2, Old Michaelmas Day (or Dog-Whipping Day!!!) on October 10, and a few modern inventions like Punkie Night, Mischief Night and Devil's Night, all in late October - I ended up falling back on the the main two occasions, which, as you'd expect, were Halloween on October 31 and Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes Night) on November 5.

Halloween, of course, speaks for itself. Though it's a misunderstood festival, owing mainly to the Eve of Hallowtime, a medieval Christian feast on which the dead were religiously honoured, rather than a witches' sabbath, it did coincide with Samhain, an ancient Irish feast marking the end of the Harvest season and one which most likely had pre-Christian roots, so it still deserves its esoteric reputation. When the customs of these feasts are brought together - the lighting of jack-o-lanterns, the bobbing for apples, the ghoulish masquerade, the trick or treat, the telling of ghost stories - you have an event that has rightly served as an inspiration to thriller and horror writers since time immemorial, A well as those tales already mentioned, and just off the top of my head, The Samhain Feis by Peter Tremayne, The Black Pumpkin by Dean Koontz, Boo by Richard Laymon, Hollow Eyes by Guy N. Smith, The Candle In The Skull by Basil Copper, and All Souls' by Edith Wharton are all among my favourite ghost and horror stories, while Hollywood indulges itself too, seemingly every year, recent movies like Sleepy Hollow and Trick 'r' Treat going overboard in their efforts to recreate the Halloween horror experience.

And yet, Bonfire Night, which is only really celebrated here in the UK, has more recent origins and is in several ways a much darker and crueller occasion. At one time it was illegal in England not to commemorate the capture of Guy Fawkes and the Catholic gunpowder plotters on November 5 1605 and the subsequent foiling of their plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament and murder King James I. None of those convicted were executed by burning - they were hanged, drawn and quartered instead, but the immolation of Guy Fawkes effigies all over the UK each November 5 still invokes memories of a sectarian British Isles in which religious and political differences could incur draconian punishments. That said, it's largely a fun and harmless occasion these days, sadly diminishing in my view, as health and safety regulations prohibit the impromptu lighting of bonfires outside private premises, and the use of fireworks has become quite common on special occasions all year round. However, as well as Ramsey Campbell's great tale, I can easily think of several other Bonfire Night-themed short stories: Funeral March Of A Marionette by John Metcalfe, and at least three that first appeared in the legendary Pan Horror series - Guy Fawkes Night by Richard Davis, Bonfire by C.A. Cooper, and Firework Night by St. John Bird. so clearly the spirit of the occasion still lingers in those darker imaginations.

But for all these quirky traditions - wearing pumpkin heads for God's sake, burning mannequins at the stake - it's still the ambience of this time of year that does it for me. We've no sooner got used to the light and warmth of summer when suddenly it's turned cold and dark again. All at once there's a smell of fungus and mildew in the air; rich pastures become desokate wastes; trees wither before our eyes. This is surely the ideal season in which to write and set scary stories - and you don't even have to use the meaning of the special dates. Look at the iconic movie,  Halloween. It's actually nothing to do with the festival of All Hallows Eve - it's a tale of a mass murder which just happens to be set on October 31, and yet it works so well. Hey, it doesn't even have to be genuinely scary. Check out that comedy/horror masterpiece of stage and screen, Arsensic and Old Lace. I swear, you'll be screaming with laughter, not terror, but it's another Halloween classic all the same.

So go on, take the darkening of the year on the chin. Immerse yourself in its dreariness and gloom, and in the eeriness and downright weirdness of its customs, and let it carry you away on a tide of imaginary menace. And get bloody writing.

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THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS ...

A new and ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller and horror novels) – both old and new – that I've recently read and enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum, but by the definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything about these pieces of work in advance of reading them, then this part of the blog may not be for you. You have been warned.

THE TERROR by Dan Simmons (2007)

In 1845, the Franklin Expedition set sail from England to forge the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic. It wasn’t the first expedition to attempt this, and it wouldn’t be the last. But few better equipped vessels under the control of more reliable and experienced crews would ever undertake the task. It is all the more baffling then that the Franklin Expedition wasn’t just a failure but a catastrophe. Both ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, vanished without trace – it was 2014 before the remnants of one of the vessels, the Erebus, were found underwater in Baffin Bay, and though a few pathetic graves were also discovered onshore, the majority of the 200-strong crew were never accounted for.

What actually happened will never be known, but in his blockbusting horror opus, The Terror, US author Dan Simmons gives us his own unique version of events – and it is one of the most enthralling and chilling stories you are ever likely to read.

As if the ravages of hypothermia, frostbite, scurvy and lead poisoning aren’t enough, the ships’ crews, who are already icebound when we join them, must also deal with a ferocious and unstoppable monster drawn straight from the darkest corner of Inuit mythology and now intent upon hunting them to the last man …

But, whatever you do, don’t come at this book under the impression that it’s simply a creature feature. Yes, the monster is relentless and terrifying and one of the main characters in the book – and its attacks are truly horrific, but there is so much more to The Terror than this.

To begin with, Simmons gives us a detail-crammed account of a hugely complex and heroic undertaking, leaving nothing out as he constructs in our mind’s eye the image of an invincible force, the best the Royal Navy’s Discovery Service can offer – the cream of its officers, the pick of its men, and the finest two ships in the fleet, both driven by new-fangled steam engines and ploughing the ice with their armour plated hulls – and then, slowly and sadistically deconstructs it, hitting us blow by blow with its gradual deteoriation in the White Hell of the Arctic wilderness, one thing after another going wrong from the mundane to the unbelievably disastrous … until all that remains is annihilation. Even without the monster, this would be an orgy of hardship, the participants constantly called on to use every scrap of strength and ingenuity they have just to survive for one day more, and so often failing.

It’s an epic of endurance, a saga of suffering. And as such, the book is massive – its prodigious length (an amazing 944 pages!) has supposedly put some punters off. But it’s so well-written and so readable that – for all its colossal length there is scarely no padding, and despite the fact so much of it is spent on the desolate ice-floes or deep in the nauseating dungeons below decks – its pace just bounces along. 

And as I say, it’s more than just a litany of horrors. Before its huge cast of characters gets whittled down, Dan Simmons creates a vivid cross-section of 19^th century sea-faring life, from tough, professional seamen to damned rankers, from captains courageous to traitors and mutineers. The life-and-death intricacies of Arctic navigation are also laid out in minute and fascinating detail. It’s a wonder of research. You’d almost believe Simmons had been there himself and experienced it.

And then we have the set-pieces, which are among the best and most savage I’ve ever read. The battles with the ice-beast, the brutal flogging of the seditious, the cannibalisation of slain comrades, and most startling of all, a grand and crazy masquerade on the ice – men driven mad by cold and starvation cavorting in lurid costmes, performing profane rituals from the world of Grand Guignol in temperatures of a hundred below …

I can’t say anymore, except that The Terror is a historical horror masterpiece and must be read to be believed. Whatever you do, don’t let its size put you off. This is a page-turner of the first order.

And now, as usual just for fun, a bit of fantasy casting. My picks for who should play the leads if The Terror were ever to make it to the screen (my latest understanding is that a TV series is in development – probably not enough masked superheroes for it to get the big screen treatment):

Captain Francis Crozier – Michael Fassbender

Doctor Harry Goodsir – Timothy Spall

Lieutenant John Irving – Eddie Redmayne

Cornelius Hickey – Andy Serkis

Thomas Blanky – Robson Green

Lady Silence – Roseanne Supernault

Sir John Franklin – Anthony Hopkins

(This week's pictures, are, from the top down: Autumn Woods by 221 Bbakerbabe; the original cover for Something Wicked This Way Comes, Niall McGuinness in Night of the Demon; Sacrifice; Walkers In The Dark; a still from Trick 'r' Treat Bonfire Night at Billiecray by William Warby, Cary Grant in Arsenic And Old Lace, and The Terror.

Madness, murder, mayhem - Glasgow style

First up, the all-important news that I'll be appearing at the Bellshill Cultural Centre, just outside Glasgow, on Tuesday October 13 this year, to chat about my Heck novels and anything else the audience is interested in. It starts at 7pm and it's free. But I've been told that booking is advised. Here's the number: 01698 346770/346771, while the actual online details are HERE. For those interested, the address is John Street, Bellshill, ML4 1RJ.

In keeping with the Glasgow theme, this week's Thrillers, Chillers, Shockers and Killers focusses on Craig Robertson's tough crime caper, WITNESS THE DEAD, which is set in the very heart of that great city. You can find that towards the bottom of this post. But first, on a slightly different note, it gives me great pleasure to announce that a couple more stories first published in my Terror Tales series have come to global attention by being selected for inclusion various in 'Year's Best' anthologies.

Followers of this blog may recall that earlier this year, my two Terror Tales anthologies of 2014, TERROR TALES OF WALES and TERROR TALES OF YORKSHIRE, were duly honoured when four stories appearing there were chosen by editor Johnny Mains for reprint in his excellent BEST BRITISH HORROR series. They were Learning The Language by John Llewellyn Probert and The Rising Tide by Priya Sharma, both from TERROR TALES OF WALES, and Random Flight by Rosalie Parker and On Ilkley Moor by Alison Littlewood, both from TERROR TALES OF YORKSHIRE.

Now, I'm glad to say, the latest batch of Year's Bests have come out, and both WALES and YORKSHIRE have again been granted recognition.

In TERROR TALES OF WALES, Stephen Volk's masterly novella, Matilda of the Night, invokes a real nightmare when an academic studying local folklore is inexorably drawn into the apparently senile ramblings of a hospitalised woman on the verge of death ... I knew from the moment I first received this tale that it had 'Year's Best' written all over it, it's sharply drawn characters interracting on the bleak stage of modern urban life, and yet the whole thing underwritten by the myths and magic of a dark, mysterious world that is not as far from us as we may like to think. It's no surprise, but a great joy nontheless to see it selected by Stephen Jones for BEST NEW HORROR 26.

Meanwhile, in TERROR TALES OF YORKSHIRE, Keris McDondald's disturbing fable, The Coat Off His Back, sees a museum employee charged with cleaning and preserving the artefact of a lifetime, an 18th century 'Innocent coat' - a form of magical protection - apparently dating back to the days of the highwaymen. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, especially where ancient and malevolent powers are concerned ... This was another tale that I knew was destined to go far when I first received it, beautifully written and intensely frightening, and yet very redolent of the grand old city of York, in which it all takes place. I'm delighted that American editor, Ellen Datlow, chose it for inclusion in BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR 7.

It's great news for both Stephen Volk and Keris McDonald (aka Janine Ashbless), and another big thumbs-up for the Terror Tales, series, which has done very well so far in terms of Year's Best selections. For the record, the totals thus far stand as follows; LONDON leads the field with four, YORKSHIRE and WALES are in joint-second place with three each, while SEASIDE, EAST ANGLIA, COTSWOLDS and LAKE DISTRICT make up the chasing pack with one apiece.

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THRILLERS, CHILLERS, SHOCKERS AND KILLERS ...

A new and ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller and horror novels) – both old and new – that I've recently read and enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum, but by the definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything about these pieces of work in advance of reading them, then this part of the blog may not be for you. You have been warned.

WITNESS THE DEAD by Craig Robertson (2013)

A brand new sex killer is terrorising Glasgow, dumping and displaying his ‘party girl’ victims in ritualistic fashion in the city’s various Gothic cemeteries. 

A seasoned but dysfunctional murder investigation team swings into action, aided and abetted by young crime scene photographer, Tony Winter. But this will be no straightforward enquiry. Retired detective Danny Neilson – Tony’s uncle – is convinced he’s seen this maniac’s hand before. Back in the ’70s, he hunted a Glasgow rape-strangler known as Red Silk, who also picked his victims up in bars and nightclubs. The problem is, the Red Silk murders were eventually pinned on another Scottish serial killer Archibald Atto – and Atto is still inside, serving a full-life sentence.

So what’s going on? Did the original Murder Squad get it wrong? Is this a copycat murderer? Or a student of Atto perhaps? One question definitely needs answering – how is it that Atto, all but incommunicado in the isolation block, knows so much about this latest batch of heinous crimes? …

I have all kinds of reasons to recommend his novel. A Glasgow native, Craig Robertson (pictured) brings the wintry city to life in glorious, gritty form, using lots of real locations, and painting a vivid picture of its lively and street-smart population – both as it is now, and as it was in the sectarian early ’70s. He also knows his local history, because this fictional case is clearly influenced by the unsolved Bible John murders of the 1960s, a dark chapter in Glasgow’s history, which continues to haunt many of those who remember it.

The police enquiry itself is excellently handled and worryingly authentic – there are lots of stresses and strains in the team, not to mention inopportune moments of realistic error-making, while the sheer griminess of its members’ daily experience has had a brutalising effect on them. There is little love lost here, and almost no political correctness, especially where hard knut boss DI Derek Addison is concerned, but none of this matters because this is not the nice, safe world so many of us inhabit – it is dark, bleak, dangerous, and at the risk of sounding clichéd, the wolves that scour it will only be brought down by wolves of a similar nature.

Robertson is also known for his character work, and it’s never been better exemplified than it is here. Winter himself is a flawed hero, his fascination with the artistry of violent death leaving him open to the wiles of Atto, who, during the course of several tense interviews, starts to recognise a like mind in the young snapper. This makes it all the more difficult for Winter’s on-off girlfiend, DS Rachel Nary, who might once have been the warm heart of this investigation unit had she too not been battered by life. For me though, the star of this show is Danny Neilson, who we see in two parallel narratives, as he was when still a carefree lad-about-town copper back in 1972, and as he is now, old, overweight, grouchy, constantly trying to patch up his many failed relationships, and at the same time obsessed with the case he never managed to solve.

So yeah … this is a bit of an ensemble job, with several lead characters, all of whom go on dark if fascinating journeys. And all the time of course, in the background, the clock ticks down to yet another vile murder.

I’ll say no more except that it’s a tour-de-force. If you like your urban crime fiction grimy, and you enjoy looking a little more deeply into the lives and loves and hates and fears of those caught up in it, then this one is definitely for you.

As usual, just for the fun of it, here are my picks for who should play the leads if Witness The Dead were ever to make it to the screen:

Tony Winter – James McAvoy

DS Rachel Nary – Karen Gillan

Danny Neilson – Brian Cox

Archibald Atto, Red Silk – Ciaran Hinds

DI Derek Addison – Dougray Scott

Thrillers, chillers, shockers and killers ...

A new series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller and horror novels) – both old and new – that I have recently read and enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum; there will certainly be no given-away denouements or exposed twists-in-the-tail in this column, but by the definition of the word ‘review’ I’m going to be talking about these books in more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything at all about these pieces of work in advance of reading them yourself, then these particular posts will not be your thing.

DEVIL’S PEAK by Deon Meyer (2005)

Devil’s Peak takes us into the heart of Cape Town’s Serious and Violent Crimes Unit, where one of the lead investigators, now a recovering alcoholic, finds himself pitted against the most dangerous opponent of his career.

DI Benny Griessel is an instinctively brilliant detective, a natural hunter of criminals. But hard drinking has destroyed his family life and made him a laughing stock in the department where once he was a legend. Not a good time for him to come up against ‘Artemis’, a vigilante serial-killer targetting child-abusers, who doesn’t just enjoy what appears to be advanced military training but is operating with the tacit approval of many of Griessel’s fellow cops.

One of the most startling thing about this crime masterwork from South African author, Deon Meyer, is that it was originally penned in Afrikaans. All the more credit, then, to translater KL Seegers for producing such a beautifully written and yet blood-pumpingly readable English language version.

But it isn’t just about the action. A far, far cry from your basic ‘cops and robbers’ or blow-by-blow ‘good guys v bad guys’, Devil’s Peak is a grown-up and multi-faceted tale, tough and visceral in tone, but also rich in flawed characters and deeply redolent of both urban and rural South Africa; not just the geographic landscape, but the political and social scene as well.

The three central personalities: drunken cop, Griessel, high class call-girl, Christine van Rooyen, and vigilante avenger, Thobela Mpayipheli, are so well-drawn that you can literally see them in front of you. Griessel in particular is a wonderful creation. You might be tempted to say, “okay, another alcoholic antihero … big deal”, but in this case it’s for real. By this I mean that Griessel’s recuperation from his alcoholism is every bit as gruelling as you’d expect it to be in reality. The reader isn’t spared a single torturous moment of his DTs, or allowed to forget for one minute the devastation his drinking has caused in both his private and public life. It makes him a hugely sympathetic if very conflicted hero, but hardly equips him to face the floodtide of heinous crimes exploding around him.

And yet this is all very serious stuff. The painful realities of an understaffed police force trying to function in the face of corruption, cynicism and spiralling crime rates, and in a society still divided and impoverished in so many ways, are never skimped on. There are times in Devil’s Peak when you really do wonder if there is any hope that good can overcome evil.

Anyway, I’ll say no more, because this novel has to be read cover to cover to be fully appreciated, and once you start you won’t be able to stop. I managed it in only two sittings, if I recall correctly.

A taut but very human crime thriller, which rises to a spectacularly brutal and exciting finale. No wonder Meyer is so highly rated. It’s my first one of his and won’t be my last. He deserves all the accolades.

Just as a bit of fun, here are my picks for who should play the leads if we’re ever fortunate enough to see Devil’s Peak transferred to the screen (I think an adaptation may possibly be in development):

DI Benny Griessel – Arnold Vosloo

Thobela Mpayipheli, ‘Artemis’ – Idris Elba

Christine van Rooyen – Jessica Marais

THE DEEP by Nick Cutter (2015)

When the world’s population is decimated by an incurable and rapidly expanding plague, mankind’s last hope rests with maverick scientist Clayton Nelson and his team as they test a possible solution at the foot of the Challenger Deep (40,000 feet below the ocean’s surface). But when all contact with the submarine base is suddenly cut – seemingly at Clayton’s own whim – the only remaining option is to send down his brother, Luke, to try and talk the nortoriously erratic genius around.

But Luke and Clayton, having shared a nightmarish childhood, don’t get on very well, and in any case there are things lurking down there that are beyond the normal comprehension of most human beings.

Make no mistake, the events that follow comprise pure horror – for all sorts of reasons.

Never has the terror of deep sea exploration been as fully and vividly realised as it is here. Nick Cutter takes us down through untold lightless fathoms to a realm that is alien in every sense of the word; an environment where oxygen itself turns toxic, where the tiniest chink in the hull could create an incoming jet of water so intense it will slice a man in half, and yet where native creatures exist that have no place in any sane creation. But it isn’t just the twisting of physics and biology that bedevils the reader’s mind here, it is Man’s helplessness in the face of it. With Hell triumphant on the outside, on the inside of the claustrophobic sea-base the foulness and disarray is horrendous; the sense of besiegement under millions of tonnes of crushing black water is overpowering. I don’t think I’ve ever read another book to which my most overriding response was “thank God I’m not there”.

And if all that isn’t bad enough, then there is the actual enemy – a force of evil crueller and more terrible than anything ever encountered on the ocean floor before (and just imagine what that actually means). A sentient something that will play catastrophic havoc with human minds, not to mention their anatomy, purely for reasons of its own fascination. To say more about this would be a real spoiler, but put it this way, there are some occasions when wickedness knows no bounds – quite literally; neither intellectual, spiritual, nor even physical. There are points in this novel where you must be prepared to be very disgusted indeed.

At the same time, Luke Nelson, a likeable hero in every possible way, is no more than an everyman. A veterinary surgeon, who by pure luck – pure bad luck in this case – happens to know the egomaniac scientist well. He has no skills of his own that he can bring to bear in this demonic zone, no specialist knowledge. His battle-scarred military sidekick, Lieutenant Alice Sykes, aside from being a submersible pilot, is in a similar position. The desperate twosome find themselves completely at the mercy of forces beyond their imagining, and yet somehow they must not just endure, but must save the world with their actions.

This an amazing piece of fiction. Another against-all-odds ordeal for the characters involved,  which races along at whipcrack speed and yet is written with great visual elan, including the complex technical stuff, which Cutter never shirks, but presents to us in quick, slick, easy-to-understand fashion. It is is also both horrifying and terrifying – in that numbing, near-nihilistic way that always seems to earmark those ‘adventures’ occurring on the very edge of human reality. An oceanic horror classic.

As always, and just for fun, here are my picks for who should play the leads if we ever get to see The Deep transferred to the screen:

Dr. Luke Nelson – David Franco

Lt Cdr. Alice Sykes – Charlise Theron

Prof. Clayton Nelson – James Franco

Full fathom five, true terror lies ... soon!!!

Can anyone think of a scarier place on Earth than the deepest regions of the sea? You know, that endless unlit realm of mud, sand and rock, silent except for those eerie, inhuman calls echoing through the void, empty apart from those immense, amorphous shapes gliding past you in the gloom.

Can anyone think of a worse predicament to be in than marooned on the sea's surface with no food, no water and no land in sight, and maybe with a few fins cutting the waves in a circle around you, or perhaps even worse, with some great glistening tentacle waving at you from a few yards distant?

It is one of the great unknowable forces, of course - the ocean.

It surrounds us all. We've sailed it, we've swum in it, we've fished it, mapped it, mined it, holidayed on it. We've trawled many of its hidden vaults, photographed its weirdest denizens. And yet it remains enigmatic.

One of the greatest elemental powers in our world, it can decimate fleets, swallow towns, annihilate civilisations. Vast, moody, mysterious and completely unfeeling, it could and would snuff out each of our lives in the blink of an eye, without a moment's hestitation.

Anyway, we'll talk a bit more about that in a minute.

When I commenced editing my TERROR TALES series for GRAY FRIAR PRESS, I was following in the footsteps of the charming MARY DANBY and the late, great R. CHETWYND-HAYES at Fontana Books, whose TALES OF TERROR series in the 1970s first introduced the concept of intermingling horror fiction with horror fact and presenting it in a procession of regionalised anthologies. Just as Mary and Ron did, my initial plan was to tour the UK, interspersing spooky folklore with original horror fiction from some very distinctive localities - WALES, LONDON, CORNWALL - though sensitive to accusations (none of which have materialised, by the way) that I might just be copying my forerunners, I was derermined to introduce some slight variations, dare I say it - go into a little more detail. So, while Ron and Mary did SCOTTISH TALES OF TERROR, my intent was to do TERROR TALES OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS and TERROR TALES OF THE SCOTTISH LOWLANDS. Where Ron and Mary did EUROPEAN TALES OF TERROR, my ambition is to do TERROR TALES OF WESTERN  EUROPE, TERROR TALES OF EASTERN EUROPE, TERROR TALES OF SCANDINAVIA, TERROR TALES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN, etc (though that's all for the future - there's only so much time in the present, you know).

But all along I knew that one subject I couldn't prevaticate about, that I simply had to plunge straight into (pun fully intended), just as Ron and Mary did all those years ago, was the SEA, or, as it will be called in my case, the OCEAN. 

As we speak, TERROR TALES OF THE OCEAN (pictured topside, mi hearties!), is still in production, so don't go looking for it yet.

It won't be published until later this year. But, as always, what an absolute joy it's been to work on it. The cover art was provided by the ever-incredible NEIL WILLIAMS, and in this volume I'll be honoured to include stories by such luminaries of the horror and thriller genres as PETER JAMES, ROBERT SHEARMAN, STEPHEN LAWS, ADAM NEVILL, LYNDA E. RUCKER and CONRAD WILLIAMS.

Suffice to say that every aspect of oceanic terror has been investigated by this erstwhile crew: from ghost ships to devils of the deep, from hideous curses to haunted islands, from hellish storms to murderous mariners, from sunken cities to ghastly eco-monstrosities.

It's exhausting stuff, just listing it all. But I think this will be one of the best TERROR TALES titles to date, and I can't wait to release it. So keep watching this space for publication dates, table of contents, back-cover blurb, etc. And if you've yet to go on holiday this August, be careful where you swim, or surf, or float on your air-bed.

You never know what might be underneath you, or approaching you from behind, or waiting on shore, hidden below the innocent looking sand - just biding its time.

Masterclass melding of crime and horror

Dark tales, sinister tales, thrillers, chillers, horrors, crime and suspense - whatever you want to call them, multimillion book-selling heavyright PETER JAMES excells at them. But you won't need to analyse his sales figures to know this.

Just check out A TWIST OF THE KNIFE, his short story collection published by Macmillan in 2014. In an age when short tales tend to be seen as non-viable by mainstream publishers, especially on the printed page (in ebook terms it's increasingly a different story, of course), the fact that Peter James's collection came out both in hardback and softback, and now adorns the top shelves in all the best high street bookstores is a very good sign for the great man. It indicates that he long ago passed into that highest echelon of literary endeavour, wherein format, labelling, pigeon-holing etc doesn't matter one jot. The quality of the work is all.

And quality is the bottom line here.

Regular followers of this blog will know that I'm not in the habit of reviewing books. Whenever I come across a piece of work that really does it for me, I tend to either tweet my approval or slam a few sentences onto Facebook. But I'm going to make a big exception for A TWIST OF THE KNIFE, because not only does it comprise 30 (yes, you read that correctly - 30!) amazingly tense, mysterious and sublimely well-written short stories, it also blends my two real literary loves - crime and horror.

Fans of Peter James will know that he's long had a foot in both camps, though his worldwide fame
undoubtedly stems from the soaring success he's had with the Roy Grace novels. These are hard-edged but massively readable crime thrillers following the investigations of a Brighton-based detective superintendent as he pursues badmen of every ilk.

But A TWIST OF THE KNIFE is somewhat different. Yes, it contains several wickedly-plotted murder-mysteries - Roy Grace himself pops up in one story - but overall there is a slightly different feel to this book. To call it 'otherworldly' would not be completely accurate. There is nothing overtly weird or fantastical about these tales; all are firmly grounded in the contemporary here and now - and yet you never feel as if the supernatural is very far away.

Take Dream Holiday, for example. An urbane couple - there is surely no-one else working in thrillers today who writes the sophisticated middle-class better than Peter James! - are planning a luxurious holiday in Switzerland, though wife Annie, instead of looking forward to it, is increasingly bewildered and frightened by a recurring dream that seems to promise disaster. Well ... you won't need me to tell you that disaster does duly come, but in the very last way the reader expects. Trust me, this tome is well named, because horrendous twists in the tale are fully the order of play, as perfectly exemplified in this contribution.

Even those tales without an outré edge skate along the boundaries of purest nightmare. Sun Over The Yard Arm, a satsifyingly lengthy piece, which tells the story of a husband and wife team's ill-fated yachting trip across the Indian Ocean, is spook-free but would not be out of place in one of those big, chunky anthologies of the world's greatest horror stories. I won't say anything else for fear of providing spoilers, but it's a spellbinding and ghoulish read.

At the same time, two other chillers, Venice Aphrodisiac and A Christmas Tradition are what you might once have called twisted tales (no pun intended, I'm sure): short but erotically charged chillers, again with deceptively simple but, when you think about it, astonishingly transgressive concepts at their heart.

All in all, this a supreme collection of dark tales. Scary, mysterious, suspense-filled, and yes, at times rather sexy. If you read crime, it's a must for your collection. If you read horror, it's exactly the same. A TWIST OF THE KNIFE gets my strongest recommendation.  

Terror strikes in the Scottish Highlands

I'm very pleased indeed to announce volume eight in the TERROR TALES series that I edit for GRAY FRIAR PRESS: TERROR TALES OF THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. You can order it now though it is officially published on June 18.

The basic premise of this series is to do a round-tour of the British Isles (and maybe beyond), publishing brand new scary fiction from a plethora of top quality writers, and in each book interspersing the works of fiction with true tales of terror appertaining to the region in question. As you can imagine, the Highlands of Scotland loaned themselves very nicely indeed to this scheme. With a bloody and bitter history and some incredibly spooky folklore, the wildest and most northerly realm of mainland Britain (though we get out to the islands too!) gifted us a vast range of horrors to have fun with.

Anyway, I'll shut my mouth now and let the book itself do the talking. Here's the official front cover artwork (courtesy of the never-less-than-amazing Neil Williams) and back-cover blurb. Below that sits the full table of contents, and under that a few choice excerpts to hopefully whet your appetites:

The Scottish Highlands, picturesque home to grand mountains and plunging glens. But also a land of bitterness, betrayal and blood-feud, where phantom pipers lament callous slaughters, evil spirits haunt crag and loch, and ancient monsters roam the fogbound moors …

The Black Wolf of Badenoch

The deformed horror at Glamis

The witch coven of Auldearn

The faceless giant of Ben Macdui

The shrieking voices on Skye

The feathered fiend of Glen Etive

The headless killer at Arisaig

And many more chilling tales by William Meikle, Helen Grant, Barbara Roden, Carole Johnstone, DP Watt and other award-winning masters and mistresses of the macabre. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Skye’s Skary Places – Ian Hunter

Phantoms in the Mist

The Dove – Helen Grant

Prey of the Fin-Folk

Strone House - Barbara Roden

The Well of Heads

Face Down In The Earth – Tom Johnstone

The Vanishing

The Dreaming God Is Singing Where She Lies - William Meikle

The Curse of Scotland

The Housekeeper – Rosie Seymour

From Out The Hollow Hills

The Executioner - Peter Bell

Saurians of the Deep

You Must Be Cold - John Whitbourn

Glamis Castle

The Fellow Travellers – Sheila Hodgson

Daemonologie

Shelleycoat – Graeme Hurry

Evil Monsters

The Other House, The Other Voice – Craig Herbertson

The Mull Plane Mystery

Myself/Thyself - DP Watt

The Bauchan

Broken Spectres - Carl Barker

The Big Grey Man

Jack Knife – Gary Fry

Tristicloke the Wolf

The Foul Mass At Tongue House - Johnny Mains

The Drummer of Cortachy

There You’ll Be – Carole Johnstone 

A person must be a brute if he can sit of an evening warming his hands over the fire and know that under the stone upon which his buckled shoe rests is the mouldering body of his own child. How could he stand the evil scent that must have seeped from under it, rising on the warm air?

The Dove

Helen Grant

“Oh, there are all sorts of vague tales about weird voices, climbers’ ghosts, and so on – the winds make peculiar sounds howling round the crags. But the only creature linked specifically with the Cuillin is the Uraisg. There’s a corrie and a pass named after it. It’s supposed to look like a goat in a man’s shape, all shaggy, with sharp teeth and claws. Very frightening to behold.”

The Executioner

Peter Bell

The collectivised farms were famine factories. It wasn’t just sheepdogs who worked seven days a week all their short lives. In the hamlets there were scaffolds: they sagged with examples bearing placards strung round stretched necks. From Lochgilphead I heard the crackle of a distant firing squad.

You Must Be Cold

John Whitbourn

If you guys can forgive me a personal indulgence, I really feel as if the TERROR TALES series is going from strength to strength at present. It's certainly my intention, if we manage to sustain the series for long enough, to take it way beyond the British Isles. But of course it's all about time and patience. To date, we've done eight in the series. In addition to HIGHLANDS, we've done LAKE DISTRICT, COTSWOLDS, EAST ANGLIA, LONDON, SEASIDE, WALES and YORKSHIRE. But rather than blab on about those here, I recommend you follow the 'Edited Anthologies' link at the top of this page. There is a lot more detail over there.

With regard to my own short story writing ... well, the demands of the HECK novel series is preventing me throwing myself back into it. But I still try to keep my hand in now and then. It's a great pleasure to me that, thanks largely to Heck, there appears to be much renewed interest in my story and novella back-catalogue. 

The latest one to get the full audio treatment from WHOLE STORY AUDIOBOOKS is my 2009 novella, THE BALEFUL DEAD. It's a lengthy piece - well over 30,000 words, while the narration by Jon Keeble (who is excellent, as always) lasts three hours! - and it tells the tale of an ageing metal band who have all but given up, when their scheming manager hatches a plan to re-ignite their careers by use of an Ancient Roman death-ritual.

It was first published in the collection, GROANING SHADOWS (2009) and later was reissued in my e-collection DON'T READ ALONE (2013). It is still one of my personal favourite novellas, combining, as it does, my love of hard rock, ancient history, British folklore and evil mysticism. Hopefully the flavour is Jamesian with a generous dollop of Le Fanu - but that's for the audience to judge. Anyway, here's a brief snippet:

Beyond the first cover of the trees only more trees were visible: gnarled, mossy stanchions, their lower boughs heavy with bright new leaves. Here and there, rhododendrons had risen up between them, great profusions of glossy, tangled vegetation, which blotted out all vision.

“Are we going back?” Rob wondered.

“No,” I said.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no hero, but I’m fifty-one years old and I’ve been around. I’ve seen and done things, both good and bad, that the average man couldn’t even dream of – I wasn’t going to be spooked by the eerie hush of an English woodland.

So we pressed on. And eventually we came to the Lamuratum.

It emerged through the trees ahead of us in steady, unspectacular fashion.

The Grecian pillars, each one about nine feet tall, were made from marble and arranged in a neat circle. As the picture I’d seen earlier had illustrated, small lintels or roofs connected them. Initially it must have been quite startling; a gleaming white edifice amid all this lush, natural greenery. But over the decades it had accumulated considerable filth: leaf-mould, watermarks, streaks of bird-droppings. The tall stones were now mottled a yukky grey-green and filmed with lichen. I think its phoniness – the fact that it wasn’t really ancient – made it all the more repugnant. It was like a modern building gone to rack and ruin through sheer, bloody-minded neglect.

We approached it reluctantly. I’d expected the structure to be half-buried in undergrowth, but that wasn’t the case. The open space surrounding it was bare earth, beaten flat as though trodden by countless feet. Its interior was equally accessible. No fence or barrier had been put around it. All we needed to do was walk in between the pillars and there we were. The ground inside was also firm and bare. In the very centre was a low marble plinth, squarish, about three feet wide by three, and standing to knee-height. Its upper surface was slightly concave and coated with a greasy, black residue that was odious just to look at.

“I’m liking this place less and less,” Rob said.

     “We were warned not to come here.”