Horror

Cover Reveal and Q&A: THE WATCHERS by Neil Spring (Quercus)

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watchers.inddOn September 24th, Quercus Books will publish Neil Spring’s THE WATCHERS. To the right you can see the rather excellent cover. Here’s the synopsis:

At the height of the Cold War, officials at the Ministry of Defence conducted a highly secret investigation into unusual events that occurred along a strip of rugged coastline within the Pembrokeshire National Park nicknamed ‘The Broad Haven Triangle’.

The events made national headlines: lights and objects hovering in the sky, ghostly figures peering into farmhouse windows, cowering animals, and poltergeists plaguing a terrified family of witnesses.

Thirty years later, official files pertaining to these occurrences were finally released for public scrutiny at the National Archives. The disclosure prompted a new witness to come forward to speak of what he knew. His testimony rocked the very foundations of the British Government.

This is his story.

As a bonus, JFB have provided a quick Q&A with Neil. Read on for more about the novel, Neil’s writing and more… Continue reading →

Review: DAY FOUR by Sarah Lotz (Hodder)

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LotzS-2-DayFourUKThe superb sequel to The Three

Four planes. Three survivors. One message. It seemed like the end of the world… but it wasn’t. This, however, just might be.

The trip of their dreams becomes the holiday of their nightmares…

Four days into a five day singles cruise on the Gulf of Mexico, the ageing ship Beautiful Dreamer stops dead in the water. With no electricity and no cellular signals, the passengers and crew have no way to call for help. But everyone is certain that rescue teams will come looking for them soon. All they have to do is wait.

That is, until the toilets stop working and the food begins to run out. When the body of a woman is discovered in her cabin the passengers start to panic. There’s a murderer on board the Beautiful Dreamer… and maybe something worse.

The Three was easily one of my favourite books of last year. Day Four is the highly-anticipated follow-up, and I’m happy to report that it does not disappoint. Lotz has easily become one of my favourite authors. Continue reading →

Wendig’s MIRIAM BLACK Gets New Covers

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Wendig-MiriamBlack-1to3AR

I was rather fond of the original cover for Chuck Wendig‘s third Miriam Black novel, The Cormorant. The first two covers were pretty interesting, too, if a tad on the busier side (above) – all three were done by Joey Hi-Fi. Today, the author unveiled the new covers for the soon-to-be-published Simon & Schuster editions of the series (below), by Adam S. Doyle. They are also very nice (and may well appeal to a wider audience), but I think I still prefer that third Joey Hi-Fi cover…

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I never got around to reading these novels when they were originally published by Angry Robot Books. These re-issues do give me a good excuse to finally read them. I don’t know anything about the television series mentioned in the top right corner of each of the new covers, though.

Here’s the synopsis for Blackbirds:

Miriam Black knows when you will die.

She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.

But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.

No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

Simon & Schuster are re-issuing the first three novels, and have also commissioned three more. The release schedules are: first three eBooks on April 21st, Blackbirds (September 28th), Mockingbird (October 6th), The Cormorant (yet to be confirmed), Thunderbird (2016).

Quick Review: THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN by Holly Black (Little, Brown)

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BlackH-ColdestGirlInColdtownAn interesting, very good take on vampires

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

I’m going to keep this review very short – not because I think the novel doesn’t deserve a mention, but because my thoughts can be summed up quite succinctly (for a change). It’s a very good novel, I must say. Not perfect, but very strong and among the best and most interesting vampire novels released in recent years. Continue reading →

Quick Review: THE DEVIL’S DETECTIVE by Simon K. Unsworth (Doubleday/Del Rey UK)

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UnsworthS-DevilsDetectiveUSA gloriously dark and twisted crime story… in hell

Thomas Fool is an Information Man, an investigator tasked with cataloging and filing reports on the endless stream of violence and brutality that flows through Hell. His job holds no reward or satisfaction, because Hell has rules but no justice. Each new crime is stamped “Do Not Investigate” and dutifully filed away in the depths of the Bureaucracy. But when an important political delegation arrives and a human is found murdered in a horrific manner—extravagant even by Hell’s standards—everything changes. The murders escalate, and their severity points to the kind of killer not seen for many generations. Something is challenging the rules and order of Hell, so the Bureaucracy sends Fool to identify and track down the killer…

But how do you investigate murder in a place where death is common currency? Or when your main suspect pool is a legion of demons? With no memory of his past and only an irresistible need for justice, Fool will piece together clues and follow a trail that leads directly into the heart of a dark and chaotic conspiracy.

A revolution is brewing in Hell… and nothing is what it seems.

The Devil’s Detective is Simon Unsworth’s first novel. He’s been writing shorter horror fiction for quite some time, which I have not read. After reading this novel, though, I’ll be sure to check out more of his work. The Devil’s Detective is a masterful blend of horror and crime fiction, set in an evocative, unsettling take on Hell. Continue reading →

Interview with SARA B. ELFGREN and MATS STRANDBERG

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Let’s start with an introduction: Who are Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg?

Sara: I was born in 1980 in Stockholm, Sweden and I still live here. I surround myself with books. I tend to rant about stuff I love, and stuff that annoys me. What We Do in the Shadows made me laugh and I saw it twice in the cinema. I like people who are empathetic and sarcastic.

Mats: Well, I am 38. I grew up in a small town with some similarities to Engelsfors, minus the apocalypse. I now live in Stockholm. I watch way too much reality TV. I am horrible at remembering people’s names and it’s very embarrassing. I never finish books that I don’t like after 100 pages.

The third novel in your Engelsfors trilogy, The Key, will be published in the UK by Hammer in January 2015. How would you introduce the series to a potential reader, and what can fans of the first two novels expect here?

Mats: The trilogy is about six very different girls, who find out that they are witches, and have to work together to stop the apocalypse.

Sara: Meanwhile, they have do deal with the problems of their everyday lives: parents, partners, friends, bullies and homework. In The Key, the fans can expect answers to all the big, and many of the little, questions. The plot will thicken… Continue reading →

Cover: KILLING PRETTY by Richard Kadrey (Voyager)

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I’m a big fan of Richard Kadrey’s Sandman Slim series, and I just stumbled across the cover for the seventh novel, Killing Pretty. Due to be published in July 2015 by Voyager Books in the UK and US, I was unable to find a synopsis… Nevertheless, here’s the cover, which continues the very cool, vintage-pulp movie poster feel:

Kadrey-7-KillingPrettyUS

Also on CR: Reviews of Sandman Slim, Kill the Dead, Aloha From Hell, Devil in the Dollhouse, Devil Said Bang, Kill City Blues, The Getaway God, Killing Pretty

Upcoming: DAY FOUR by Sarah Lotz (Hodder)

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Sarah Lotz’s The Three was easily one of my favourite novels of 2014 — it worked on every level for me: it was tense, brilliantly written, addictive. I was therefore quite surprised that I managed to miss any news of Lotz’s next novel (and sequel to The Three), Day Four, until I spotted this post on Draumr Kopa. Naturally, I had to share the info as soon as I spotted it.

Four days into a five day singles cruise on the Gulf of Mexico, the ageing ship Beautiful Dreamer stops dead in the water. With no electricity and no cellular signals, the passengers and crew have no way to call for help. But everyone is certain that rescue teams will come looking for them soon. All they have to do is wait.

That is, until the toilets stop working and the food begins to run out. When the body of a woman is discovered in her cabin the passengers start to panic. There’s a murderer on board the Beautiful Dreamer… and maybe something worse.

Day Four is due to be published by Hodder in the UK on May 21st, 2015. I can’t wait to read it!

Quick Audio Review: THE CHILD by Sebastian Fitzek (Audible)

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FitzekS-TheChildAUDAn excellent audio drama

My name is Simon. I’m 10 years old. I’m a serial killer. Robert Stern (Rupert Penry-Jones), a successful defense attorney, doesn’t know what lies in store for him when he agrees to meet a new client in a derelict estate on the outskirts of Berlin. Stern is more than surprised, when his old love interest and professional nurse Carina (Emilia Fox) presents him a ten year old boy as his new client: Simon (Jack Boulter), a terminally ill child, who is convinced he has murdered many men in a previous life.

Robert’s surprise turns into horror when he and Carina find human remains in a cellar the boy has led them to. The remains of a man whose head has been split with an axe 15 years ago – just like Simon claimed he had. Things go from bad to worse within hours when Stern discovers more dead bodies, the investigating police officer Engler (Andy Serkis) starts to chase him as a suspect in the murder cases, and his own past comes to haunt him. Stern’s friend and former criminal Andi Borchert (Stephen Marcus) is the only one to believe Stern and Carina. Hunted by the police, and led by Simon’s memories, they start to investigate shady sub cultures of Berlin, and soon discover things that are more gruesome than anything they could have imagined…

Narrated by: Rupert Penry-Jones, Jack Boulter, Emilia Fox, Stephen Marcus, Robert Glenister, Andy Serkis

This is a really good thriller. It’s psychological, suspenseful, and… yes, creepy. The performances are superb from everyone in the cast (and such an excellent cast!). Penry-Jones and Serkis were particular standouts for me. The sound effects are well-balanced, very rarely threatening to overwhelm the actors’ lines (there is a moment early on, in the rain, although that was actually kind of realistic), and there is one voice that is slightly scrambled (on purpose) which wasn’t always clear. I’m keeping this review very short because I don’t want to spoil any of the story — also, it’s out today, and I wanted it up in a timely manner. The story is not written with a breakneck pace — in fact, it’s quite a slow-burn. There are some genre tropes ticked off, but it doesn’t come across as a paint-by-numbers thriller. There are suggestions of something supernatural and/or otherworldly from early on, and it takes some time for things to be unveiled.

If you’re looking for something chilling to listen to in these cold(er) winter months, then I would absolutely recommend The Child.

An aside: I’m still not used to reviewing audio fiction, and I think I still prefer audio non-fiction. However, this story still managed to keep my attention and send the occasional chill up my spine. I’d certainly be interested in listening to more like it. (I think I’ll have to try Audible’s other new drama, Six Degrees of Assassination.)

Review: THE LESSER DEAD by Christopher Buehlman (Berkley)

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BuehlmanC-TheLesserDeadAn interesting, engaging twist on vampire mythology

The secret is, vampires are real and I am one.

The secret is, I’m stealing from you what is most truly yours and I’m not sorry… 

New York City in 1978 is a dirty, dangerous place to live. And die. Joey Peacock knows this as well as anybody—he has spent the last forty years as an adolescent vampire, perfecting the routine he now enjoys: womanizing in punk clubs and discotheques, feeding by night, and sleeping by day with others of his kind in the macabre labyrinth under the city’s sidewalks.

The subways are his playground and his highway, shuttling him throughout Manhattan to bleed the unsuspecting in the Sheep Meadow of Central Park or in the backseats of Checker cabs, or even those in their own apartments who are too hypnotized by sitcoms to notice him opening their windows. It’s almost too easy.

Until one night he sees them hunting on his beloved subway. The children with the merry eyes. Vampires, like him… or not like him. Whatever they are, whatever their appearance means, the undead in the tunnels of Manhattan are not as safe as they once were.

And neither are the rest of us.

The Lesser Dead is a pretty cool, grim and bloody take on vampires. Other have said it “reclaims” the sub-genre from the likes of Twilight, although I don’t believe horror-vampire fiction ever went away. If you like your vampire fiction bloody and populated by unpleasant, but excellently-drawn characters, then this is for you. It’s a very good read. Continue reading →