On my twice-yearly visit to the dentist, I am amazed at the depth of entertainment on offer for waiting patients. There’s a large screen showing news, film trailers and weather reports, all interspersed with adverts for cosmetic dental procedures, a play area, and a selection of glossy magazines. The latter include Vogue, Cosmo and similar upmarket fashion titles, sport magazines ranging from golf to running with everything in between, aspirational home design mags, travel supplements and a vast array of titles aimed at the more mature market.
When I was a youth, the waiting room offering consisted of little more than a few dog-eared copies of Women’s Weekly or Women’s Realm, one copy of National Geographic with any photos of naked indigenous people torn out (whether by other patients or the dentists themselves I was never sure), and a copy of Readers’ Digest which was well past its cover date.

In a time when dentists and similar professionals were excused from any attempt at punctuality, the reason I remember these titles was because boredom had to be countered, and the magazines included fiction of a certain type. It wasn’t challenging or confrontational. It had a safe mass appeal, but more importantly, it had a feel of an earlier time designed to comfort the sensibilities of its readers.  (well, those who were outside of dentists’ waiting rooms).

Talking with Strangers is a collection of short stories by Tina Rath. The tales are ‘of a time’. Some might call them old fashioned, others will point to their ‘folksy’ credentials, but I was left with the feeling I was reading stories woven with a distinct flavour of those offered up for mainstream consumption during my rather distant youth, both in terms of settings and delivery. Some are historical, but even the modern ones have a sense of nostalgia from a time passed.

The stories tend to cover a variety of subjects ranging from vampires and werewolves, through hauntings, dalliances with death and madness, to whimsical flights of fancy. Some might describe them as horror, but they sit outside of what many horror fans would expect from the genre. They’re more like spooky tales told by an elderly family member around a fire on a winter night than journeys into hell.

Rath’s work doesn’t creep up on you and pounce in an attack of shock and awe, nor do the words drip with gore or bile. There are no assaults on your sensibilities. Instead, the stories build an image before slipping towards a feeling that something is not as it should be.
For me, the book isn’t horror, but instead dips a toe into the mystical and mythological. Think more a shadow in the dark rather than an impaled virgin being torn apart by demented crab-men.

First off, it must be said Tina Rath can write. Her prose is simple and easy to read, yet it is rich with imagery and references which lift the stories in a promising way. As such, Talking to Strangers should be a welcome break from the world of jump-scares and splatter.

Rath’s storytelling is somewhat formulaic. There tends to be a fairly lengthy build-up which draws the reader away from the truth before a subtle twist turns them to face the conclusion. This can – and does - work well ... at times. Examples I enjoyed included Barefoot Without Shoon, Ilona, The Man Who Loved his Luscious Ladies, Christmas with the Family, the Co-Walker, Banks of the Roses, and my personal favourite, It’s White and it Follows me.

While these stories worked for me, many of the others (the collection includes 29 tales) fell flat, not because they weren’t well written, but because the storytelling lacked something critical. In a few cases, the ending was too predictable, while in others the build-up wasn’t rewarded by the pay-off. There was even an example of the ‘was it all a dream?’ ending which will nearly made me give up.

For me, I would have much rather had fewer stories to achieve a concise but vastly more entertaining read. I found the good stories started to drown in those which weren’t to my taste. The issue many will face with Rath’s style is if you read one story on its own, it works, but if you read the collection, one after another, you find yourself anticipating the twist at the end, guessing ahead, and too often you know what it’ll be before you get there.

That said, when they work, they work. The stories which shine are the ones with a slow burn, a build-up which is relevant and leads to the conclusion, although you don’t always see it coming. However, these are too often contrasted with stories such as a tale of a normal, slightly dowdy suburban housewife preparing for her night out while ensuring the casserole is served for the family. After a lengthy scene-setting, she pops to the shed and rides off on a broomstick.

Admittedly, I’m probably not the target audience for these stories, and many were indeed published by mainstream titles aimed at the more mature ladies of decades past. For those wanting some whimsical tales with a hint of spookiness, this collection will deliver. 

By Peter Caffrey 

Peter Caffrey is a writer of tales with an absurdist bent. A born and bred Londoner, he currently lives in the middle of nowhere with nothing but the North Sea and fog for company. Introduced to horror as a small child by a Mother who was too scared to watch films on her own, he has a fondness for demonic possession, crucifixion and impalements. His novels, The Devil’s Hairball and Whores Versus Sex Robots are available from Amazon. He drinks too much, exercise too little and is unlikely to change.
 
                                         http://petercaffrey.com

 
 
Stephen Graham Jones has written some terrific short stories and novellas, with Night of the Mannequins sitting comfortably alongside his best work. It is hard to say much about the plot without spilling spoilers, so I will be relatively cryptic and refer to certain proceedings out of context. Rest assured, this beautifully constructed novella is incredibly dark, very funny, slightly twisted and arguably an upside down coming-of-age tale. It also had a strong whiff of YA and older teenagers may find much to enjoy, equally so with his excellent werewolf novel Mongrels. 
 
Night of the Mannequins features a classic unreliable narrator, Sawyer Grimes, who completely steals the show with the unburdening of his bizarre tale. Hell, I was so engrossed I felt I was sitting in the same room as the teenager casually dropped his bombs. I love an unreliable narrator and Sawyer ranks amongst the best fiction has to offer, mixing with Frank (my all-time favourite) from The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks), Alex from A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) and Tyler Durden from Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk). He tells his story with a convincing and informal teenage voice which will take you right back to the angst of your own formative years. Absorb what he reveals very closely, try to catch what he implies between the lines, as with all unreliable narrators he has his own agenda riddled with half-truths. Tread with caution; just because he is ‘unreliable’, this fact does not necessarily mean he is a liar. Simply put, Sawyer Grimes is an outstanding literary creation.
 
The opening paragraph reveals that one of Sawyer’s best friends, Shanna, lands a new job in a movie theatre and that the others in their close friendship group decide to pay a prank on her. The five teenagers decide to pose a discarded store mannequin as though it is a real patron in her cinema, even providing ‘’Manny’ with a ticket, whilst they sit elsewhere and enjoy what they presume will lead to much hilarity. According to Frank this prank goes horribly wrong and the deaths which follow can be traced back to this misguided attempt at humour. Here is the opening paragraph:
 
“So Shanna got a new job at the movie theatre, we thought we’d play fun on her, and now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all.”
 
How can a prank involving a mannequin’s dummy lead to the tragic loss of life? That is all part of the wild journey our young friend Sawyer takes the reader on. This is one of those novellas in which the quality is so high you are going to speed through it in no time. The only factor higher than the quality, is the originality.
 
As well as Shanna, the other friends are Danielle, Tim and JR and the kids are all huge cinema freaks, who love nothing more than sneaking in for free and often watch the same superhero films on multiple occasions. Amusingly, there is a film at the core of the story the kids watch several times, but the author enigmatically never reveals what it was. The story has a vibe which is both lovingly cinematic and nostalgic to the slasher films of yesteryear, with a pivotal scene near the end taking place at a local drive-in theatre.  Like most teenagers, much of the time they are bored, and Night of the Mannequins convincingly portrays the lifestyles of suburban kids with too much time on their hands, but too lazy to find something new to do.
 
I adored the very droll sense of humour which Sawyer’s narrative injects into Night of the Mannequins which masterfully balances making a villain out of ‘Manny’ the dummy with the obviously troubled psyche of the teenager narrator who has more problems that he realises, or is willing to reveal. As Manny begins to play a bigger part of proceedings the novella just got odder and I was fascinated in discovering how events were going to play out. Stephen Graham Jones kept me on the hook all the way to the enigmatic ending.
 
The author obviously had a lot of fun messing around with the tropes normally found within the horror genre, particularly the slasher film, and the result was a superb blend of absurdity, thriller, and horror. Night of the Mannequins was funny but treaded the tightrope perfectly and never descended into stupidity, taking in other themes including loss of innocence, friendship, and madness. If you have never tried Stephen Graham Jones this quirky novella is a perfect introduction with a great author at his most playful.
 
5/5
 
Review by Tony Jones
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Apart from her first paranormal series, Black Wings, one Christina Henry novel is not like the others. First she gave us the brutal and intoxicating world of her Alice novels, then a subtle story of love and freedom in The Mermaid, before returning to violence and vendettas for Lost Boy. Whatever common themes they may have, each book is a different reading experience, and the same is true for her newest novel, The Girl in Red.
 
Henry’s skill is in taking an old concept and turning it into something fresh and new. With her earlier works, there’s a strong relationship between her book and the original story. But with The Girl in Red, there are only a few nods to the fairy tale to which the title alludes.
 
The world has been brought to its knees by the Crisis, a plague that has spread across the globe in the tiny droplets produced when people cough. The Girl in Red charts Red’s flight across the country, through woods and fields, to reach the sanctuary of her grandmother’s house. Every step is filled with danger not just from the virus, but from the wolves in men’s clothing who seek to harm Red and many others just trying to find their way in this devastating new world.
 
Aside from Black Wings, Henry had given her previous books either an historical setting or a purely fantastical one. Both are set aside for The Girl in Red, which is a contemporary post-apocalyptic novel.
 
Red, the main protagonist of the novel, is a character filled with suspicions about the world who always prepares for the worst. Her whole family might pack their bags ready to go at a moment’s notice, but it’s only Red who knows where her bag is at all times. When her father parks the SUV on a supply run, she advises him to turn it around before they park, so that they’re facing the right direction if they have to leave in a hurry. There are hundreds of quirky little comments or actions by Red throughout this novel that build her up into the most competent individual in the book, even if the price of that competency is that she’s permanently suspicious and on edge.
 
Another interesting element to this book is the focus on a family unit. The protagonists in Henry’s previous novels have been loners who find their own family. But Red starts out with a family, and her interactions with them and her responses to the various losses she endures adds a unique depth to her character.
 
As she makes her way through this strange, new world, Red refers a lot to horror films that she has seen and tries to assess what the outcome of her actions might be. Generally, I find that such allusions break the reader’s immersion in the story: it reminds you that the fictional outcomes they are considering are just as unlikely as the fictional situation you are currently reading about.
 
However, Henry manages to make Red’s allusions to horror movies an intrinsic part of her character and so avoid this jarring effect. There is often a lot of black humour involved in Red’s comparisons to the world of Hollywood and the world she currently finds herself in. One passage in particular stuck with me:
 
It is astonishing how much crap humans need to survive, Red thought... in the old [Godzilla] movies there was inevitably a scene in which Godzilla would be destroying some prefecture and a person would be fleeing with literally every single thing they owned on a little cart. There would be furniture and dishes and all this other random crap, and of course a baby perched in a basket at the top of the pile like an afterthought, like, “Oh, we’ve got Mother’s tea set packed, maybe we should bring the baby, too. We have space.”
 
There are also instances when Red is presented with a conundrum: if she walks across the wide open space to the apparently empty warehouse that might have food stores, will the inevitable monster chase her down? Or is approaching the warehouse actually completely safe and it’s only her knowledge of horror movies that is making her think it isn’t safe? Sometimes her suspicions grounded in horror movies save her life, while at other times they potentially deny her food and resources.
 
It is at this point I feel it is necessary to note that Red is a woman of colour with a prosthetic leg. I believe it’s important to mention these particular traits because they are sadly lacking in protagonists in mainstream horror novels. However, I’ve left it until the last point because Red is absolutely not defined by her skin colour and her disability. They are simply parts of her character rather than her defining features. Although she encounters racism, sexism, and is constantly aware of any hindrance her disability might cause in perilous situations, these factors are interwoven with her other fears and concerns without them in any way taking precedence over her other traits.
 
I read this book before the pandemic hit, so I wasn’t particularly affected by the fact that the “Crisis” that has consumed the world was carried by airborne germs and it was essential to wear a mask if you had any hope of survival. However, if you would find Stephen King’s The Stand uncomfortable reading given the current climate, then you’d best steer clear of this novel since it cuts a little close to the bone in that respect.
 
However, once you feel up to post-apocalyptic fiction, this novel should be at the top of your reading list. Brutal in places, uncompromising in its details, and headed by a heroine that gives any member of The Walking Dead a run for their money, this is a sure-fire horror and thriller hit.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Alice and Lost Boy comes this dark retelling of Red Riding Hood

It’s not safe for anyone alone in the woods. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that was perfectly sane and normal until three months ago.

There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there’s something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined.
​
Red doesn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods…

In the introduction to What Hell May Come, author , tells us of the Satanic Panic which reached its apex in the mid 1980s. He writes of the time with considerable knowledge, and then asks us to “imagine a world where all of these allegations are true.”

The introduction drew me in, hoping that the author would play on the sincerity and gravity with which acts of Satanic worship were reported, or perhaps satirise this time, indulging in a little 80s nostalgia on the way, much like Grady Hendrix’s 2016 novel, My Best Friend’s Exorcism, which goes big on the nostalgia and even bigger on the hair, but what I found was quite different. Instead of dropping in references to 1980s pop culture, and playing on the ridiculousness of the time, Hurst instead opts for a dark and somewhat disturbing tale which rather unfortunately has an unpleasant attitude towards women.

Hurst’s novel is set in Buffalo, and 1980s Buffalo is not a pleasant place to be. One of Hurst’s strengths in this novel is his ability to depict places, particularly unpleasant ones. The deprivation of Black Rock, Buffalo is more than apparent in his descriptions: “Their dwellings reflected their poor life planning. Cardboard squares duct-taped in place of broken windows. Screen doors with the mesh half hanging out. Red brick stoops that were missing a few bricks. Old paint jobs with flaked-out gray splotches like leper spots.”

In the first chapter of the novel we’re introduced to the teenage protagonist, Jon. Some sympathy is created for the character, for his parents treat him abysmally. This goes beyond the typical teenage whining of life being unfair and siblings getting preferential treatment. Here, it’s clear that’s what’s happening. Jon’s only joy comes from playing role playing games with his friends, Michael, Louis, and Kathy. It is his relationship with Michael which perhaps comes across best here, and the way Kathy is a potential romantic interest could have been interesting.

The story is at its best when the teenage characters are interacting. The dialogue between them sparks, and their scenes are genuinely engaging. Hurst writes about the role playing games well too, and the importance of it is more than apparent: “Better than a book. Better than a movie. It was a tale they all told together. One where they were the heroes, great deeds were accomplished, and even death itself was negotiable. Quite frankly, it was better than life itself.”

Without doubt, the most interesting scene was one in which all four characters go to play their game in an abandoned graveyard, and awake something rather unsettling.

One of the novel’s best ideas is the link between the role playing game and Satanism, with the fictional game Dark Dungeons playing a huge part in the plot. The idea that your fantasy character works as a barrier, as a conduit between yourself and the demons is a great one.

In fact, What Hell May Come is a novel that is rich with ideas. We touch on the young man that discovers his parents are in a Satanic cult and has to do something about it, and we also have a bit of the kids who raise demons in order to help them overcome the bully and get the girl. Throw in also a splash of a best friend corrupted by demons, and top it all off with a young man being brought into his family’s secret – they’re Satanists, and he has to try to escape.  Story-wise, it’s trying to do too much, and as such, all of the plots suffer. None are fully developed, and when any of those arcs reach a conclusion it often feels rushed and a little unsatisfying.

I have to congratulate Hurst on how authentic he made his world, whether that be the descriptions of the locations in the novel, or the lore behind it. There are a number of references to old witchcraft trials, occultists, specific demons and historical events, and whether they have been drawn from real history, or myth, or are invented for the novel, they all add to an overall feeling of depth.

Despite these strengths, I find it hard to get past the attitude towards women displayed throughout the novel. Early on, Jon and Michael mention that all the women in Buffalo are “dumb sluts”. You could perhaps excuse this as characterisation of Jon, and how he feels (he is so desperate to lose his virginity). But then comes the description of Jon’s sister, Michelle: “the greatest whore Jon had ever heard of, except she never got paid.”

The way Jon talks about his sister made me feel uneasy, but then he carries out an act which made it very hard to sympathise with him thereafter. He takes a hotdog from the freezer, and then partially defrosts it in a urine-filled toilet. Then this happens: “He shoved the soiled hotdog into her mouth and laughed as her filthy gums worked around it expertly. Eyes crusted over, she grunted in appreciation as she fellated the dead meat.”

Later, when he finds his parents’ secret camera and starts to realise they’re Satanists he witnesses a brutal sex scene between his parents and another man, in which he sees his mother’s face “had gone purple from his grip on her throat.” 

Yes these are supposed to be unpleasant characters, Satanists who revel in depraved sexual acts, but almost every single female character in the story (with the exception of the much younger sister) is overly sexualised.
​
While Hurst’s What Hell May Come does a solid job with the world building, and some of the scenes with the teenage characters are engaging, on the whole I found the story too unfocused. Overall I was left with an unpleasant taste in my mouth, and, because of the continuous poor representation of women in an overly sexualised and offensive manner, I do not feel that I can recommend this novel.

​review by ben langley ​

I was very excited to read this book after reading the synopsis.  It sounded like a harrowing, heart wrenching tale that would make me cringe.  I like many types of horror and they don’t all have to be so gory as to make me cringe, but I do enjoy a good test of my...resolve? Gag reflex?  I don’t know what to call it.  I like a good story that shocks me a bit and takes me out of my comfort zone.  This book delivers some of that.
 
The book does have a decent amount of gore and violence.  Richard is an abusive asshole and lashes out at Crystal for the smallest of transgressions.  Being trapped in a relationship with a person who physically and psychologically abuses you would no doubt breed constant fear, insecurity and inability to effectively make a decision - all things Crystal experiences on a near-constant basis.  These harrowing and heartbreaking consequences in victims of abuse are clear in Detwiler’s tale.  To me, Detwiler unapologetically conveys the minute-by-minute struggle of an abused spouse, both when the abuser is home, and when the abuser is gone but can come home at any time.  I feel the issue of abuse was handled respectfully for Crystal.  Richard riled up my disgust and anger I feel toward abusers of any kind.  Abusers’ actions are inexcusable, all of the time.  And this book drives home that point.
 
This book had a good and gruesome storyline.  Definitely not for the faint of heart!  The atmosphere throughout was decently creepy.  There was always a sense that Richard would show up and kill Crystal.  And her nightmares were vivid, unique and frightening.  So there are some good elements of psychological torture.  And best of all - a very satisfactory ending.  It was a little predictable, but not entirely so.  And I appreciate how everything was revealed in the end - no plotholes.  That always makes me happy.
 
As far as characters go, they all were pretty three-dimensional.  There didn’t seem to be a flat character in the book.  I rooted for Crystal the whole time and hated Richard the entire time.  Completely hated him and wanted to give him a taste of his own medicine, myself.
 
But even though I loved the plot, setting and characters, the style of the book made it very difficult for me to read.  It is in first person POV, which normally, I love.  In this case, much of the book was told in Crystal’s ruminating thoughts.  And I empathize greatly with that because I can be the same way - and I imagine I’d be a lot worse if I were in Crystal’s situation - but it was difficult for me to wade through the repetition.  I just prefer books with more action, and less thinking.  It may be because I am so damned introspective that I like to live vicariously through characters who do a lot of things.  The action does seem to pick up about halfway through, so that was refreshing and kept me reading. But I still found myself skipping paragraphs here and there because it felt like I’d read them many times over.
 
So even though the style of the book was very difficult for me to read, I think Detwiler created a dark, gripping story that will stick with the reader long after it’s read.
 ​

Review by Kimberly Wolkens
 
My Rating - 2 out of 5 stars

Alex North’s The Whisper Man was one of my favourite thrillers of 2019, a startling debut which balanced perfectly the mainstream page-turner with serial-killer horror and the threat of the supernatural. The Shadow Friend is another standalone thriller, with a fresh set of characters, interestingly, it does mention in passing the shocking events of the previous novel, but you can read this without having read the former. Stylistically, however, it is very similar to its predecessor, moving between two timelines which are years apart with a similar supernatural whiff, which is probably stronger in this book and keeps the reader dangling until the end.
 
If you’re after a page-turner I highly recommend both novels, but The Whisper Man narrowly shades The Shadow Friend, mainly because it is slightly more unsettling and is built around a more striking villain, but it’s a close call. Both plots are fiendishly clever, with lots of red herrings, twists and top-loaded with incredibly damaged characters. No more so than the police officers leading the prospective investigations.
 
I’m going to be vague with the plot as I do not want to provide too many spoilers, many other reviews provide way too much detail, so watch what you read. After Paul’s elderly mother has an accident at home, and is moved into hospital, he returns to the town where he was brought up but has not visited in over 25 years. This is the fictional small-town of ‘Gritten’, which might remind you of a thousand small dying English towns. We quickly find out that Paul had a difficult relationship with his parents and in flashback the plot returns to when he was fifteen and forced to move schools, along with his best friend James, due to low pupil numbers. In the new school they become friends with Charlie and Billy, the former becoming the ringleader of the gang. Charlie is a charismatic character who fends off bullies and winds up teachers, but also believes that through experimentation people can share dreams, he calls this ‘lucid dreaming’ and so the boys start experimenting. Interestingly, Paul’s part of the story is told in the first-person narrative and in due course you’ll realise why.
 
The friendship dynamics of the teenage boys was a real strength of the novel, apart from James none of the boys were true misfits but found strength in their own tight-knit group. I’m sure many readers will see some of themselves in these boys, passing Steven King novels amongst each other and having adventures in the local woods until girls appeared on the horizon. The middle-aged Paul’s reflection on these times was spot on, nostalgic in spells but with the darkness lurking at the periphery of vision. Alex North is excellent at leading the reader up the garden path and with the first-person narrative anything is possible. It’s one of those “Just one more chapter” before bed kind of books. When you’re in the moment it is a very addictive read.
 
The second narrative, in the present day, concerns Detective Amanda Beck who is, by contrast, presented in the third person. Amanda is investigating the murder of a teenage boy in a neighbouring town and slowly connects the two cases after meets the adult Paul who remains haunted by the events of 25 years ago. Whilst caring for his sick mother he realises someone is intent on reminding him of those events, shocking him, or even worse.