Tag Archives: Review

Review: “To See Too Much” by Mark West

0
Posted on by

I’ve recently read all of Mark West’s dark thrillers from The Book Folks, and was happy to discover that his latest novel “To See Too Much” is up there with the best of them.


It’s narrated by Carrie: a social worker recovering from a heart attack. She heads to Miller’s Point – a small cluster of quaint cottages on the coast – to convalesce, planning a gentle time of sea air and walks on the beach, but the other residents turn out to be an intriguing and unsettling bunch.

She accidentally overhears a couple of heated exchanges, and somewhat bored and restless, becomes drawn into watching the lives of her temporary neighbours. Discovering broken marriages and professional scandals along the way, Carrie soon realises that Miller’s Point is full of tension and dark secrets. And some people are not happy with her watchful presence.

When a local woman goes missing and a corpse turns up on the beach nearby, Carrie realises that she’d be better off well away from all this, but feels bound to do the right thing and help some of the new acquaintances she has made.

Carrie is a great narrator: pleasant, strong and intelligent (like many of Mark West’s previous protagonists) so it’s easy to invest. Her social work background means she is an astute reader of the human condition, and also instinctive when it comes to perceiving threat. And she certainly sees plenty of that as we are carried along by her sharp curiosity and suspicions.

The author is a master of building menace and that is perfectly escalated here. The story begins with occasional and subtle moments of unease – the odd glance or awkward exchange – then slowly cranks the apprehension as unpleasant things start to happen.

The narrated prose is clean and effortless to read, dappled with lovely turns of phrase, and the dialogue always feels real. There’s a depth and fragility to the characters, and I love the way everyone has secrets and is a bit weird, broken or hard work in some way. Because, aren’t we all? The character dynamics and interactions are convincing and full of deft touches, which is a good job because “To See Too Much” is very much a character driven piece.

Miller’s Point is part of the traditional but faded British seaside resort of Seagrave: a fictional location of the author’s that has featured in several of his previous novels. Although I was pleased at the prospect of a revisit, it’s a little different this time. We don’t see much of the town, the tale concentrating upon the dysfunctional microcosm of Miller’s Point, and the book is all the better for this tight and somewhat claustrophobic focus.

There’s fun whodunitry to be had should you wish to try and deduce the real villains of the piece, and it all builds to a gripping, violent and satisfying finale that had me glued to the page as everything fell into place.

One of the many things I love about this author’s novels is that I can relax in the knowledge that I’m not going to be disappointed or feel cheated in any way. With touches of Rear Window, “To See Too Much” is a page-turner that requires no cheap shot fireworks to keep us hooked and I eagerly look forward to Mark West’s next work.

Mark West

The Book Folks

Review: “Triptych: Three Tales of Frontier Horror” by Richard Beauchamp

0
Posted on by

I’ve never been a particular fan of traditional or mainstream Westerns, but the tropes of scorched plains, dusty towns, gunslingers and frontier justice provide a great canvas for a pulp horror story.

Having read Richard Beauchamp’s superb dystopian “War Born” last year (my favourite in the “Heavy Metal Nightmares” anthology), I thought his textured prose and talent for conjuring unforgiving wastelands would make him an ideal writer to smash these two genres together. Reading Triptych certainly proved that to be the case.



It opens with “The Courier” in which Jeremiah – the titular character – meets a sinister man in a snow-covered tavern. He is tasked with transporting a strange artifact across several states, in time for solstice eve, and delivering it to a known practitioner of the dark arts.

His journey takes him into the harshest of blizzards during which Jeremiah is stalked and attacked by men who try to warn him of what he carries. Townspeople – and even mountain lions – shy away from his presence, and what begins as a professional dedication to his job soon becomes a protective obsession. He regards the strangely-warm package as his talisman, and it seems to keep him going on his brutal journey long after any mortal should surely have perished.

This tale brings the classic setting of the loner traversing the American West on his trusty steed, but slowly morphs it into cosmic and visceral horror. I read it straight through, driven by a hungry curiosity that was masterfully stoked by the author, and the evocation of the frozen mountainous terrain is perfect. An intriguing and compulsive read with a devilish pay off, this is a sterling start to Triptych.

Following this is “Blood Gulch” which is by far my favourite piece of the three. It doesn’t hang around, immediately presenting an infestation of slug-like monstrosities that burrow into people’s spines and control them as hosts. Our protagonist is Maylene, a woman in search of her missing husband who has been taken by the foul creatures – along with countless others – to an ominous subterranean cave at Blood Gulch.

What awaits there is a wrenching vision of hell, and I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the surprise.

Maylene is a brilliant character – a gun-toting, sharp-tongued badass who will stop at nothing to look after herself and her own. Throw her into a story of revolting parasites against a backdrop of boiling sun, alcohol, blood and dust, and you’ve got an absolute winner.

It shines through its storytelling towards a satisfying epilogue, and the plentiful and gritty period language seems authentic, bringing a grounding realism to the sf/horror concept. With shades of Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian”, David Cronenberg, Calamity Jane and the Aliens mythos, “Blood Gulch” is worth the price of Triptych alone.

“It Comes For Us All” is the finale, co-written with Korey Dawson. Here we find a sharp-shooting indigenous bounty hunter called Sho’keh. He is transporting a dangerous criminal, Tom Dallion, across the bandit-populated desert and frontier towns of the Mojave to where he will finally meet justice.
But the wisecracking prisoner seems to be undergoing a strange transformation, and once the blood moon rises, pandemonium will be unleashed.

“Dallion’s eyes shone in the moonlight, somehow moving in the stillness of his smiling face, like silver coins in the bottom of a disturbed well.”

My complaint with this story is that I kept losing track of who was speaking, especially during the opening scenes, despite only two characters being present. This was mainly due to the overuse of character tags as well as their names (the older man said, the bounty hunter said, the man on the ground said…) which was confusing and unnecessary.

But the characters are solid, the dynamic between the two leads is convincing, and Dallion’s gruff retorts and escalating creepiness is a great foil for Sho’keh’s pragmatic patience. The foreboding tone slowly cranks up throughout their journey, building to a grisly “Splatter Western” showdown.

Richard Beauchamp has definitely climbed up my horror watch list with this release. Triptych brims with exquisite turns of phrase and slick dialogue, and he clearly makes an effort with historical attention to detail. The landscape becomes an integral part of the tales, essential with any quality Western, and the author’s knack for creating an immersive atmosphere is perfectly suited to this kind of fiction.

Merging the spooky eldritch with gore, it should please fans of both camps. As a devotee of both, I had a splendid time.

“Hell comes at High Noon” indeed.

Richard Beauchamp

Review – “Stuck On You” by Jasper Bark

2
Posted on by

“Warning! Do not buy this book, gentle reader” begins the blurb of this novella from Crystal Lake Publishing. It continues in a similar vein, shooing potential buyers away with cautions of plumbed depths but without actually offering any details about the contents. So how could I resist? But whether that purchase was the result of rash curiosity or clever marketing is irrelevent. “Stuck On You” is both the best and the most gleefully unpleasant thing I’ve read this year.Stuck on youThe tale concerns Ricardo, an American on a trip into Mexico to acquire some cheap artisan crafts for his wife to sell back home. As he’s a bit of a lothario with form for cheating, these trips are as much a test of his fidelity as a business venture. So when he bumps into young Consuela – an alluring drug mule who wants passage across the border – we’re not surprised when he agrees to give her a lift. Ricardo becomes increasingly horny throughout the journey, and while waiting on a deserted country lane for Consuela’s dealer to make contact, he gets the reward he was really after.

And that’s when it goes horribly wrong.

Terrifying-urban-legend meets worst-possible-nightmare wrong.

This is going to be an unusual and restrained review from me. Although that’s the basic set-up of the story, I’m not going to spill any specifics of what happens to Ricardo. This isn’t because of spoilers, as chapter one begins after his nightmare is already underway and has it all laid out within the first few pages. No, I’m holding back because I read it blind with no idea what was coming, and loved it that way. So I’ll just let Jasper Bark tell you what happens instead. Because you are going to read this.

Why? Heady erotica and extreme body-horror collide with a bang, sending us and Ricardo on a horrific downward spiral that gets nastier and… dare I say it… more amusing with every turn of the page. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. And then again. And again.

The helpless descent is structured like a black comedy, and borders on gross-out slapstick at times, but never loses its agonisingly sharp edges. It made me writhe, recoil and smile, sometimes all at the same time, which is probably the most joyfully offensive thing about it. I almost felt dirty for allowing myself to become so charmed.

“Stuck on You” ticks every box with regard to pace, character and evocation. Just leave your concern for all that is good and wholesome at the door. The conclusion is glorious – a chilling suckerpunch that cleverly ties up this gruesome package – and my mouth might actually have fallen open for a moment. Then I exhaled and shook my head slowly as I put the book down, partly sickened by the assault, but mostly in sheer admiration of it.

If you can stomach the hard stuff, then you’ll devour this gripping piece in one sitting. I love it when extreme fiction is so superbly written, and I will definitely be buying Jasper Bark’s collection when it comes out in a month or two.

Never has an author’s evil eye twinkled so bright. Highly recommended.Stuck on you 2