Hersham Horror Books follow the release of Richard Farren Barber’s tremendous “Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence” novella of last year with another quality release, Dave Jeffery’s “Bad Vision” which will be launched at FantasyCon on 24th September. At the moment, the horror community is spoilt for choice with high quality novellas being released thick and fast and the latest from Jeffery is an enjoyable fusion of thriller and paranormal horror.
 
If you’ve never come across Jeffery, he’s an author who is equally impressive in writing in different areas of the horror genre. His YA “Beatrice Beecham” supernatural adventure series is old-fashioned good-natured fun, and at the other end of the spectrum there is “Frostbite” a trashy, but very entertaining horror adventure yarn with rampaging yetis in the Himalayas. This latest novella sees Jeffery in more serious mood, spinning a yarn that tackles both mental health issues and premonitions that seem too real to be simple nightmares.
 
The action opens in Bromsgrove Police Station, where Detective Malcolm Cross is beginning his interview with the main character Ray Tonks for a crime yet to be revealed to the reader. But whatever it is, it sounds nasty. Surprisingly, Ray waives his right for a lawyer and seems unnervingly calm and detached. We quickly realise why the novella is called “Bad Vision” as Ray is suffering from weird visions which apparently foresee future disasters such as plane crashes and earthquakes.  These nightmare visions hit him like epileptic fits and if it happens in public it looks like some sort of seizure. For the majority of the time Ray has kept these fits hidden, but they start to occur more frequently and it gets increasingly difficult and puts a strain on his marriage, hiding much of the truth from his wife. Secrets are an underlying theme of this novella; all the characters have them.   
 
Whilst Ray is in the police station the plot goes into partial flashback mode with other characters are introduced, including his wife Denise, whom he has drifted apart from. Ray works as a Clinical Risk Manager in the area of mental health and manages a small team all whom have key roles to play in the drama including Mike Tanner, a talented Data Analyst, the cute Eloise Adebola and the sleazy Brendan Short. At various stages the point of view switches to these three characters, this was a bit odd as the plot initially seemed to unfold via Ray telling his story from the police station to the detective.
 
There are plenty of very memorable scenes, particularly with Ray trying to hold it together when the blackouts get systematically worse and the visions themselves are powerfully drawn. His mental disintegration is skilfully handled and there is one particularly memorable scene in which he has a blackout whilst presenting a paper to his bosses which will have you cringing.  In the background we are alerted to a serial killer on the prowl and the integration of that into the main plot cumulated with a nice twist. The support characters all have their own issues and secrets, but in the end their connection to the central plot of Ray and his “Bad Visions” did not add up to very much and were periphery to the main story.
 
The plot periodically flicks back to the police station and gradually it is revealed what Ray is doing there. Dave Jeffery crams a lot of plot, characters and action into this punchy novella and you’re never too sure which direction it is going to take with the twists nicely shrouded until the last minute. I enjoyed the final sequences; the cool ending and “Bad Visions” was very good company over the period in which I read it. A heady mix of paranoia, thriller and horror which over 150 quality pages is very likely to enhance Dave Jeffery’s growing reputation in the horror scene.
 
Tony Jones

David Barbee is a Southern Gentleman. He'd probably not want me telling ya'll that, but I've met him and he is. Now once those fingers of his commence to tyoing, I can no longer assert this as truth...see, weird shit happen when he lets his words out---

In a frog-flooded future, an evil empiric entity known as the Buddha Gump Shrimp Company rules the roost. Backed by an army of crawfish humanoids and redneck sword-swingers.  Our main character, Jimbo is imprisoned. He's had a cuttlefish sewn to his face as punishment, you know because locking a feller up isn't enough.  He wants revenge on the company for killing his family and well, for the thing on his face.

After an escape, overseen by the ghost of his father, Jimbo works his way up the ladder of revenge. Rungs slick with slime, shrimp juices and sarcasm.  Will he reap his vengeance? Will he get that fucking tentacled thing off his face?  Will you ever read a more gonzo, wacky romp through Shrimp & Samurai madness than this?  I won't say.  I will say this was a fun read. A fast read that made me smile numerous times and grimace probably more than that.  It's an oozy doozy of a novella and I urge you to check it out.
​
Jimbo Yojimbo is available from Eraserhead Press

The Ginger Nuts of Horror rarely reviews crime novels, but because “Blood Standard” was written by Laird Barron we are very happy to make a cheerful exception. It must be said that the number of authors who successfully write both crime and horror are relatively few. Stephen King made a fine change of direction in the “Bill Hodges Trilogy” which began with “Mr Mercedes” but ultimately the author could not stop himself integrating the paranormal into the final book in his series. Scottish legend Graham Masterton is another exceptionally gifted example, after umpteen horror novels he very successfully turned his expert hand to crime, with his outstanding and long-running “Katie Maguire” series, which in many ways are more violent than most of his horror novels and that’s saying something. Check out the first book “White Bones” if you want to argue the toss about it, as you’ll be cringing from the page in no time.
 
Laird Barron does not follow the King or Masterton blueprints at all. Neither does it resemble serial killer crime fiction such as Thomas Harris’s “Silence of the Lambs” which has been very popular with the horror crowd. Bearing in mind he is best known for cosmic, literary and Lovecraftian influenced horror you might expect him to throw some horror into the mix. Not at all and it’s not even particularly violent. However, “Blood Standard” is a superb crime novel and you’d be hard pressed to spot any stylistic evidence it was written by an established horror writer.  Actually, it reads like this guy has been writing crime for years. That’s a major compliment.
 
The plot is a naturally simple one, the main character and first-person narrator Isaiah Coleridge is exiled from his home in Alaska after assaulting a local gangster. Isaiah works for another branch of the ‘Outfit’ himself, mainly as an enforcer, even though he is a man of extreme violence he cannot abide violence inflicted upon animals, which lies at the root of his current predicament. Due to connections his life is spared and he is sent to the Catskills area of upstate New York to recuperate on a horse farm after being tortured. On the farm he connects with Reba, the granddaughter of the couple who own the farm, but before long she disappears. Suspecting foul play, Isaiah investigates, meanwhile the Outfit he turned against lurk in the background seeking revenge or another double-cross.
 
“Blood Standard” is billed as “The first book in the Isaiah Coleridge series” I sincerely hope so, as this character simply crackles with life, sass, street philosophy, anger and bouts of controlled and almost apologetically brutal violence. He’s a real tough guy. As a first book in a series it was simply outstanding, this point is worth dwelling upon, as often long-running crime sequences mature and improve as they develop, with the first book not necessarily being the best. For example, few would argue that the first Ian Rankin “John Rebus” novel or Michael Connelly’s “Bosch” debut was their best, they improved over a few novels and twenty plus books later are still going strong with massive and dedicated audiences. To the immense credit of “Blood Standard” it seems ready formed, and that’s some achievement for a debut crime novel. Rankin and Connelly may have much more complex and layered plotlines than this novel, but I’m sure Isaiah Coleridge has great scope for character development in future outings.
 
Isaiah Coleridge is just so funny and is easily the most engaging character I have come across in 2018. Even though he works for the mob, he is not fully protected by gangster law due to the fact that he is half-Māori. He’s a really clever guy and in another life, he could have been a politician or a lawyer, but damaged by a fractured relationship with his father, drifted into a life of crime where dishing out (and receiving) punishment became a way of life.
 
A lover of booze, classical literature, gambling, women and animals, Isaiah’s search for Reba is his own personal odyssey back into the underworld, wherever it takes him. He has his own code, a journey on which the reader will be gripped and rooting for the outsider all the way. I read this superb novel over three evenings and would have done so quicker if I had the time. Razor sharp dialogue, brilliant one liners and moments of bone-crunching violence “Blood Standard” has it all. Populated with larger than life support characters it really was a breath of fresh air in the over-crowded crime genre. Why write horror when you can write crime as convincingly as this? It really deserves to be a smash and is as good, probably better, than anything on the crime best-seller list. I really hope it not overlooked by crime readers if they peg Laird Barron as a horror writer. Bring on book two.
 
Tony Jones

 
I opened the book with no expectations, I’ve read very few ‘drabbles’ but what I read were fine. There were many names I recognised on the TOC, yet started as anyone should, at the beginning. A mixture of stories flooded at me, some calm, some comical and others aggressive in their horror yet I continued reading, steadily picking my way through the short stories at such a rate I began to wonder if I had somehow been hypnotised. They gripped me, held fast, destroying my time as I consumed each and every delicate little morsel, leaving me hungry for more.
 
What I have written above is exactly 100 words, the same length as each of the stories in this collection. Prior to reading it I had perhaps read a dozen or so drabbles over the years and I’m aware that a vast amount of people love to do them. I didn’t really go in for the whole flash fiction scene, even though very good friends of mine were into it. I think I missed out.

I’d always been massively concerned with novels, writing ones which I then burned and/or reading masses of them for the sheer joy of it, sometimes a short story or collection would turn up by one of my favourite authors so I would give it a shot. Some stories being better than others but still entertaining, and in recent years I have enjoyed and occasionally endured short form fiction as a result of online requests in groups and of course through my association with The Ginger Nuts of Horror. I could appreciate the short form for what it is, which to me has more in common with song writing than with novels, this is because a novel as 80,000+ words to play with, and can spread out as a very involved story. A song on the other hand often has to convey a story of emotional depth in just a few minutes; there are thousands of songs which do just that.

The 100 Word Horrors book has brought together what I would consider to be a vast amount of stories, at a quick count I made it 110, from a variety of established and up-and-coming authors with the likes of Lisa Morton, Mark Cassell, Richard Chizmar, Pippa Bailey, David Owain Hughes, Michael Bray, Amy Cross, Becky Narron, Chris Kelso, Chad Lutzke and Christina Bergling to name but a few.
Each of the stories is of course bite sized, and yet I was constantly surprised by what each author had managed to do with the hundred words. With so many stories in the book and so many different authors one can expect a degree of overlap with similar themes, yet there is surprisingly little of that here and their dedication to craft has created a wealth of small but perfectly formed chillers. To me this book has many functions, it is a light read and as such could easily be the sort of thing you can get into on a tea break or the bus to work, but if you’re like me your drink will go cold or you will miss your stop and continue reading until the final tale is over. It is also a very useful guide to what is happening in contemporary horror as it is quite clear that there are many significant talents at work here with a wealth of different voices and there are several whom I’ve never read who have now enticed me to seek out more of their work.

I’m not going to single out any specific stories, as there are none which I would consider bad or confusing, they are all straightforward great little horrors, all of which are worthy of consideration. The beauty of such brevity is also that if you don’t like the story it has only been a hundred words, so you haven’t wasted hours on it. If Kevin J Kennedy decides to create another anthology such as this one then I’ll certainly look forward to reading it.

Before I go, I must give a special mention about the cover as it is one of the most inspired works of art I’ve seen on a book cover since I don’t know when. Made to look like an old gaming cassette case it has a ‘Rampage’ theme, with a King Kong like gorilla, A Werewolf and A Giant Lizard smashing burning buildings with destruction in their wake and Apache gunships et cetera firing on them. It’s all rather dramatic and I believe parallels the scale of the contents. Whether you want something to while away the afternoon, or to dip into when you have 10 minutes, this is the ideal book.