It’s no secret C.W. Blackwell is a Renaissance man when it comes to writing. His short dark fiction has appeared in genre anthologies highlighting a broad range of horror, including psychological, folk, and gothic. His flash fiction “Memories of Fire” snagged a 2021 Derringer, a prestigious award named for the pistol, bestowed by the Short Mystery Fiction Society. It’s no surprise, then, that his latest release, Song of the Red Squire, should both straddle the line between genres and simultaneously shine in both of them.

Part crime fiction noir, part folk horror, Squire follows Charlie Danwitter as he documents apple varieties for the USDA in the late 1940s. Blackwell, a seasoned maestro in penning historical fiction, nails period details with the sharpest of hammers, from subtle setting description to cadence in dialogue. Charlie is a sympathetic but complex protagonist, a World War II veteran still shell-shocked from the battlefield, shoveling barbiturates into his mouth like Tic-Tacs, trying desperately to tamp down the terrifying flashbacks described in a series of haunting tableaus that wax and wane through the novella: “From the sea of fog rose a strange ethereal figure. A wraithlike face with moon eyes and a great void mouth. The head twisted and bore its nightmare eyes on the train. It seemed fixed on Charlie’s window as it crested the summit and came wending into the valley, white tendrils casting about like spiders’ legs.”

The book begins with Charlie arriving at his destination, a rural corner of North Carolina famous for its wide variety of apples, but something isn’t right. The character can’t put his finger on it, and neither can the reader, but the author pokes tiny pricks in the Americana fabric, creating a sense of unease almost from the start. Area farmers are more than reluctant to participate in the interloper’s project, so when given the opportunity to travel to an even more remote area that might be more cooperative, Charlie jumps at the chance without hesitation. Blackwell nudges us, though, that something darker awaits his hero with subtle details: a report of a colleague on a similar excursion going suspiciously missing, a bizarre discussion with a roadside beekeeper about deadly stings, a car accident that leaves a female passenger injured and dazed. In the last, the victim “shut her eyes and took a long shuddering breath. When she opened them again, she was staring right at him. ‘You got a dead man’s voice,’ she said. ‘Don’t hear no life at a-tol…Sing me a dead man’s song,’ she howled. ‘Sing it with grave roots wrung about your throat. Sing it from your rotten grave!’”

One is reminded of the most successful of classic noirs and psychological thrillers as Squire progresses. When Charlie tries to navigate the ominous secrecy surrounding the farmlands, echoes of Chinatown’s Jake Gittes poking his head into California’s water shortages resonate; when Charlie attempts to outrun his nightmares of the war while trying his best to salvage his career, whispers of Shutter Island’s Teddie Daniels fixating on the mysterious disappearance of a guarded patient waft by.
​
Squire is certain to please the most nitpicky of both crime fiction and folk horror fans as it both embraces and reinvents the most well-trodden tropes of each genre. Even as Charlie is warned to stay away, readers will be on the edge of their seats, pushing him to keep going, even if it might mean their hero will be wading out too far to ever return. A local cautions Charlie, “Son, you’ve got to keep the Devil at your knee. Let him curl up at the end of your bed on a windy night. Feed him scraps from the table. A hungry devil is a dangerous one indeed.” Readers, take heed: Song of the Red Squire will kidnap and keep you captive until the very last page, and after finishing, you’ll likely never drive through a stretch of unfamiliar rural landscape without holding your breath again.

“I see myself, Delia and Margery as ‘pockets of resistance’ – despite often being targets for derision, striving for and actively seeking the as yet undiscovered, to try and find a solution to the restless, unquantifiable passion and emotional expression we call creativity. I’m not alone in my notion that people who feel ‘other’ play a part in society as a means of achieving their goal to be themselves.”

Cosey Fanni Tutti’s first book, Art Sex Music (2017), chronicled her life and career as a transgressive performance artist and avant-garde musician, from her early life and upbringing through her work as a founding member of performance art collective COUM Transmissions and industrial music pioneers Throbbing Gristle, her escape from her abusive relationship with TG’s Genesis P-Orridge to hook up with Chris Carter (also of TG), and her later work as an electronic music innovator as one half of Chris & Cosey and as a solo artist. Her second book, Re-Sisters, The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe & Cosi Fanni Tutti (2022), is an engaging mixture of memoir and biography, as Tutti reflects on her own life and that of two other pioneering women artists, the BBC Radiophonic electronic musician Delia Derbyshire and fifteenth century mystic Margery Kempe. Tutti chronicles the lives, struggles and obsessions of these three fascinating and understudied women, drawing intriguing parallels across three very different artistic lives in how Delia, Margery and Cosey all rebelled against the constraints of a patriarchal society in order to express themselves as artists and women. Re-Sisters is both a powerful and inspiring work of feminist reflection and a worthy addition to the works of one of the counterculture’s most consistently interesting and challenging figures.

Tutti is excellently placed to write about her subject matter. As a female pioneer of electronic music who struggled against the frustratingly traditional patriarchal restrictions of a counterculture that promised more to women, she and Delia Derbyshire have plenty in common already. Indeed, Tutti was selected to provide the soundtrack to Caroline Catz’s BBC Four docudrama Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes (2020), and Tutti’s research on Derbyshire’s music and life for the soundtrack provided much of the inspiration for writing this book. The similarities between Tutti and Kempe may be less immediately clear, but Tutti makes a convincing argument. Kempe was the author of the first English-language autobiography, a fascinating and idiosyncratic text in which Kempe details her passionate Christian beliefs, her renouncing of her marriage to her husband so that she could explore her passionate relationship with Christ, her struggles against the church’s and the state’s attempts to curtail her unorthodox religious worship, and the epic pilgrimages she undertook in an era when travelling was not common for women. In Kempe, Tutti sees reflected another woman determined to live her unconventional life by her own rules in spite of the constraints a patriarchal society puts on her, a woman who seizes control of her own narrative through her own autobiographical writing, her method of “recording” and presenting her alternative lifestyle as both art and example.

These similarities give Tutti a rhetorical scaffold around which to structure her book. Re-Sisters explores the lives of Delia Derbyshire and Margery Kempe. Both Derbyshire and Kemp are underchronicled enough that this is interesting in and of itself, but Re-Sisters isn’t just a biography of three remarkable women. Tutti is interested in the restrictions that society has placed on women, and how rebellious women have struggled against those restrictions in order to fulfil their artistic and personal desires. She is also interested in the creative process and how unique and pioneering individuals approach their work.

​Tutti’s own experience creating electronic music means that she has both the technical background and the artistic context to shed light on Derbyshire’s innovative use of tape loops, recordings and early synthesisers in her composition work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and by herself, and her access to Derbyshire’s archives over the course of writing the soundtrack to the documentary and writing this book allow her to speak authoritatively on Derbyshire’s creative processes. Similarly, Tutti has clearly researched in depth about Kempe’s writing, life and social context, and she wonderfully illuminates just how rebellious and freethinking a figure Kempe was by the standards of her time. Tutti’s atheism means that she does not share Kempe’s passionate interpretation of Christianity, but she can still appreciate Kempe’s determination to live her life the way that she wanted to, and the intense negotiations she undergoes with the heads of the church, her own husband and family, and the law enforcement of the day in order to do this. This gives her a very different, but no less profound, appreciation of Kempe’s life as an artistic performance and endeavour compared to her similarities with Derbyshire.

Throughout Re-Sisters, Tutti manages to capture the essence of the women she writes about wonderfully. She is enthusiastic about their incredible achievements and pioneering efforts, but also clearly has a good sense of both Derbyshire and Kempe as real people, acknowledging their personal difficulties and struggles as much as their triumphs. She writes with an engaging, conversational style that is approachable and highly readable, whilst leading the reader through her arguments with clarity and skill. By the end of the book, one feels like one has gotten to know Tutti, Derbyshire and Kempe like friends.

Tutti writes with anger and passion when she talks about the abuse she suffered from Genesis, a frustration which is echoed by the patronising and condescending attitudes that both Derbyshire and Kempe ran up against in their attempts to realise their art. In particular, her exploration of how the 60s hippy counterculture, for all its talk of freedom, still demanded that women like Tutti and Derbyshire accept passive roles, is incisive and powerful. Derbyshire’s incredible and unique musical talents were frequently taken for granted, with her iconic work on the Doctor Who theme tune downgraded from composer to arranger, meaning she missed out on untold royalties. Tutti explores how similar patronising attitudes have led to male colleagues and journalists belittling her own pioneering work. Similarly, Kempe faced a long history of the male religious figures running the church refusing to take her seriously, despite the strength of her outspoken devotion. Re-Sisters is as much a manifesto as a work of biography, a celebration of creativity and innovation that demands that men do better when it comes to recognising the creative brilliance of women.

Considering Sara Gran’s first book was published back in 2001 and her latest The Book of the Most Precious Substance is only her seventh, nobody could accuse her of rushing her art! Her work is impressively varied, encompassing literary, detective and the very occasional toe-step into psychological horror with the superb Come Closer (2003). Gran’s sole foray into horror was more than enough reason to jump at the chance of reviewing The Book of the Most Precious Substance, with that earlier work concerning a woman who receives the wrong book in the mail which leads her into a gripping tale of possession, insanity, frustrated desire and the places where your deepest darkest fears lurk.


Fans of Come Closer should be purring with The Book of the Most Precious Substance as it has some vague similarities to its predecessor, in that it also involves a frustrated central character and more significantly, another very dodgy book. First up, I love books about books and the protagonist of Precious Substance is a serious collector, who buys and sells rare tomes to make a living. Often purchasing for $2 and selling for $20 or by having stalls at collector fairs, often specialising in obscure non-fiction subjects and I was not surprised to uncover that Sara Gran has some expertise in this subject as her love and interest shone through. If you ever thought the world of antiquarian bookselling was boring and stuffy then this tale will make you think again and is vividly brought to life. There are lots of great ‘books about books’ on the market and whilst there were plenty of rarities on offer in Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind, none held a candle to Precious Substance and the hunt for perhaps the rarest (and definitely the sleaziest) book in existence! If Abe Books had been around 200 years ago I guarantee even the Marquis de Sade himself would have been trying to locate a copy!


The Book of the Most Precious Substance is not a traditional horror novel which dances around the supernatural and is better described as literary fiction, with erotic overtones. It is not blood and guts in your face horror and moves at its own delicately slow pace, but the 330+ pages are compelling and never boring. Obsession oozes from the page as very sensible bookseller Lily Albrecht is slowly but surely taken on an intriguing dark journey in search for a book which may (or may not) exist and along the way uncovers a few things about herself, as does the reader. Written with a first-person and very sly narrative, follow what Lily reveals very closely as she might well be selective in her version of the story she spins.


The action opens with Lily at a book fair where another dealer asks her whether she could help him track down a 17th century manual on sex magic, rumoured to be the most powerful occult book ever written (if it really exists at all). The dealer has a buyer willing to pay over a million Dollars for the text and if she helps locate a copy will get a cut of the transaction, however, that same night the other dealer is killed in a random street robbery. Now with the scent of money in her nostrils Lily, with the help of a suave librarian book collector begins to search, but the problem is made more complex by the fact that she does not even know who the potential rich buyer is. But Lily is a very resourceful lady.


From those early moments the hunt is on, Lily is obsessed with the book even before she even truly knows it is real and the journey to find it takes Lily and her librarian friend across the globe. The pair’s international hunt for the grimoire was a fun journey, but the tension was killed ever so slightly by the fact that they stayed in the poshest hotels and ate in the best restaurants, rarely have I read a book with so many food scenes! However, the nuanced central character and her gradual change was well worth the admission charge with the odd sorts they met along the way adding to the intrigue. When we meet her, Lily's living a reclusive life without much joy or pleasure, focused on her business, bitter memories and complex relationships. That is until the book enters her life.


Sex and the rediscovery of pleasure are crucial to Lily coming back to life as the occult powers of the book are awakened through X-rated rituals involving consensual sex and bodily fluids which get more extreme the further the participants get into the text. The grimoire did include a fair bit of explicit sex which might turn a few heads, but it was not over the top or pornographic and from the female point of view. The occult/fantastical elements of the story are kept nicely vague and featured some clever touches, such as the fact the book did not like to be copied, photographed or even have passages committed to memory. Along the way Sara Gran builds a convincing picture of the types of eccentric uber-rich bampots who try to buy or experiment with the book taking in references to both the ‘Great Beast’ himself Aleister Crowley (who was into sex magic) and even a French dominatrix.


For some readers the hunt for the book might get slightly repetitive as it remains elusive for just a few pages too long, but I felt it was worth the wait as its descriptions positively crackled with the book being slightly worse for wear with dried up bodily fluids! If the search went on too long the change in Lily from a woman who had given up on sex to something very different was a stark contrast.


The Book of the Most Precious Substance is an addictive erotic supernatural thriller about the lengths we'll go to get the power we need and what we want, even if it involves black magic and kinky sex. Although the supernatural was kept on the backburner the manner in which it was portrayed was very convincing and if the book has you intrigued enough to try Googling ‘sex magic’ then I suggest treading cautiously, or at least choose your partner very carefully! This novel sucked me into its seductive thrall with considerable ease and I sped through it over a couple of days and watch out for the superb ending!


Tony Jones

What would it take, gentle reader – for you to cut pieces of your own flesh off to feed to a rat as a way of training and building trust – in order to put a desperate, last chance plan into action? A plan to get you rescued from a stupid idea, a hidden location, and certain death. The narrator lays it down: ‘My baby girl came back, snuffling up the pipe from god-knows-where … to snaffle my skin. I held my breath, terrified of scaring her away. The only sound was an occasional hard drop of blood on concrete as I sawed my skin.’

Prolific, dope-as-tits writer Michael Botur is back, with a new collection: The Devil Took Her – tales of horror (The Sager Group, USA). His writing in these twelve stories is pure, no-holds-barred revelry in the weird and genuinely scary. Each story is highly imaginative and, most importantly, fun to read. These stories – all set in Aotearoa – are like your own unexpected, juicy nightmares that subsequently appeared, typed-up, in your printer’s out-tray the next morning.

That opening story above – called ‘The Writing on the Rat’ – is a twisted, brutal meditation on self-harm and is a challenge to the reader: You ready for this ride? This is the mind of short story master Botur at work creating a scenario that is completely bizarre but so meticulously crafted that you just go with it – all the way to its freaky end. Don’t think for a minute that this is some kind of Saw movie ‘torture porn’ – Botur has the literary chops to avoid falling into that trap. He often applies a delicate, poetic touch – e.g., ‘I approached the furnace, begged it not to bite me. I opened the squeaking door, gently extended my head into the mouth. Little piles of coal and dust on my lips. Ash in my nose.’

‘The Day I Skipped School’ is a narrative about a murderous Japanese exchange student called Tsuru. She has a horrifying supernatural secret and becomes involved in a doomed lesbian relationship. This story is sexy and provocative, often loaded with tense, graphic action – e.g., ‘It presses me against the wall. Hot intimate reeking salt-breath puffs out from its nostrils, steaming my face. Something trickling. Moisture in my eyes. Fish stink.’ I’m not going to reveal the true identity of Tsuru here because I want you to read ‘The Day I Skipped School’. It is certainly disturbing, and the conclusion of this story is shocking. I will say this: Botur must be using one kinky keyboard.

Another story called ‘Test of Death’ is a tour-de-force of can-I-believe-what-the-hell-I’m-reading writing. It also makes you wonder what kind of weird research Botur gets up to in his spare time. A high school teacher called Jarrod, has terminal cancer, and has accepted his fate. That is until, at a farewell party, a friend drops a crazy story about ‘Tukdam’ – ‘the Tibetan solution to death’. Jarrod is absolutely determined to try it, and so his best friend Michael (the narrator) tracks down a podcast that has been banned in eighty countries, that guides the dying into a new state of being. Michael becomes a radical caregiver to his dying/undead buddy. Botur pulls off highlight after highlight as the story unfolds. There is outrageous fun – e.g., ‘… I have to get the trunk closed so slam it right on his neck and blurt SORRY, JAR, OHMYGOD I’M SO SORRY and I crouch and catch the blue squishy coconut as the last flap of neck-skin detaches and it falls to the tarmac. Catch my friend. Catch his head.’

That is just a teeny taste of what this book has to offer. Botur is a highly skilled writer of ‘out there’, humorous, short fiction. For those who know his work, there is little gangsta/street lingo in this book. Botur has opted for a simple, clear prose style that is accessible and richly detailed. Big ups, too – for setting these stories in Aotearoa. It must have been tempting to go for an American city or two, with an eye on international sales. The Kiwi setting feels like a fresh point of difference for this genre.
​
So – twelve mint tales of horror. Twelve indisputable reasons to turn Netflix the hell off.


https://thesagergroup.net/books/the-devil-took-her

​Melanie’s increasingly disturbing journal entries have to be delusional ravings—if they’re not, there’s something terrible out there, snatching runaways in the night and spiriting them off to somewhere unspeakable.

In his debut collection of horror stories, The Devil Took Her, short fiction writer Michael Botur, recognized in his native New Zealand as “one of the most original story writers of his generation,” offers twelve terrifying and bizarre tales that take us to the dark extremes of human imagination.

A woman trapped in a coal cellar discovers that in order to live, part of her needs to die. A teen prankster’s vicious joke against her tutor brings revenge served cold. Cutting class turns terrifying for two high school introverts. A powerful-yet-paranoid publisher turns a young man’s magazine internship into a nightmare. And more . . .

Jeremy Roberts MC’s at Napier Live Poets and interviews poets on Radio Kidnappers. His work has been published widely and he has performed with musicians in NZ, Texas, Saigon, and Jakarta. His collection ‘Cards on the Table’ was published by IP Australia, in 2015. He won the Earl of Seacliff poetry prize in 2019.
| Read NZ (read-nz.org) ​

Shagging the Boss by Rebecca Rowland
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Indy Pub (30 Jun. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 82 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1088029043
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1088029046

A Book Review by Jim Mcleod 

Unraveller by Frances Hardinge  

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Macmillan Children's Books; Main Market edition (1 Sept. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 496 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1509836977
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1509836970

A book review by Tony Jones 

Living with curses becomes a way of life in Frances Hardinge’s superb
‘Unraveller,’ which is topped with lashings of charm, heart, and originality


A new Frances Hardinge novel is a major literary event and the sublime Unraveller continues her tremendous run of five truly outstanding YA novels on the bounce, dating back to 2014. Having won the Costa Prize (for The Lie Tree), the Robert Holdstock Award for Best Fantasy Novel (Cuckoo Song) from the British Fantasy Society and nominations for prestigious prizes including the Carnegie Medal, the James Herbert Award, the YA Book Award and the Andre Norton Award, she is an absolute expert in crafting highly original dark fantastic fiction. This author is a national treasure and the uncrowned queen of intelligent teenage fantasy (although her books often straddle genres and are notoriously difficult to classify) and calling her ‘The Queen’ really does not do her talent justice. Perhaps ‘Grand Wizard of Fantasy’ or ‘High Priestess of the Dark Arts’ or something else Terry Pratchetesque, of which her latest novel has loving nods towards, is more fitting.


Over the last decade Hardinge has written a mere six novels, in the world of YA this is a minimal output, but if one is to continually create entirely believable new fantasy worlds, simply put, you cannot bang out a novel every year without the quality and creativity dipping. Her previous novel Darklight (2019) was set on the incredibly well-developed island world of Myriad and most authors (especially in the world of YA) would simply have followed that sequel set in the same nicely established world. Not Hardinge, she bucks this YA formula entirely and instead provides us with another wonderful new world, completely different from Myriad, but every bit as believable, charming and idiosyncratic. The ability to curse others lies at the heart of Unraveller and the great Terry Pratchett himself would have been proud of this creation! YA literature is drowning with unnecessary sequels and overstretched trilogies and I greatly admire the way Hardinge cheerfully does her own thing. But I am not going to lie; I would also welcome a return to the wonderful island world of Myriad!


Hardinge very rarely sets her fiction in contemporary periods or settings. She has said this means the easy avoidance of annoying mobile phones, or other technology, and has a particular fondness for the early 20th century, whilst also often avoids romance. All too frequently a love interest is thrown into a novel because it is an expected part of the YA formula and I appreciated the fact that the two main characters in Unraveller (both around fifteen) were particularly good friends and there was no need to turn it into something stronger. Their friendship ran incredibly deep and it worked beautifully well, beating at the heart of a very engaging story.


If you have ever read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels you’ll know that the librarian was an orangutang who was previously a wizard turned into an ape when a spell went wrong, however, he kind of enjoyed being an orangutang and nobody ever got round to turning him back into a human. One of the main characters in Unraveller has the ability to ‘unravel’ curses which have been inflicted upon other people, a skill which is exceedingly rare and one could imagine him fitting snugly into a Pratchett novel with the orangutang the type of curse which might materialise in Unraveller. Pratchett’s Discworld novels had an unwritten philosophy of ‘everything will be all right in the end’ and although Unraveller is dark fantasy, Hardinge adopts a similar philosophy and plays it pitch perfect as the characters go on an exciting adventure to find inner peace and harness their powers whilst solving a mystery. Hell, as Kellan and Nettle struggled they could have done with one of Pratchett’s finest creations, Granny Weatherwax, turning up to give them help and lessons in life! This book had tremendous heart and I am sure thoughtful kids aged twelve and above will enjoy tapping into its off-beat and peculiar style of magic.


As with all Hardinge novels a great concept lies at the core of Unraveller: the ability to curse. It is tricky to convey in words how this strange ability works so here is an example; siblings are cursed and are turned into two distinct types of birds, one bird without realising it kills and eats their human sibling without realising they were a much smaller bird. The surviving bird is later turned back into a person and then fully understands they have consumed their family member. How do they cope with the guilt? Tricky. That was one nasty curse! Here’s another: a man is turned into a worm which is repeatedly put on a fishing hook (by the guy who cursed him) and repeatedly gobbled up by fish before being put on the hook again. Curses are expected to last a long time and are guaranteed to be very unpleasant, long lasting and inventive.


However, early in the novel we realise that Kellen can ‘unravel’ curses, but he also has anger management issues and other problems. He travels with his best friend Nettle, who was previously cursed, turned into a bird and still communicates with her brother who has chosen to remain in bird form. Together they are recruited to investigate an organisation which is collecting life-destroying curses which takes them on a very odd journey across ‘The Wilds,’ the most dangerous and unmapped part of the country, where even telling somebody your name might give them power over you. The journey and exploits form a large part of the novel and was joyfully creative, full of quirky characters and clever nuggets which slowly and delicately revealed how this strange land and cursing ticked. Do not be put off by the YA ‘banner’ this novel has, anybody could read it and the fact that both Cuckoo Song and The Lie Tree won major adult prizes clearly illustrate the impressive range of this author.


Genuine child readers will need to read carefully to get their head around how the cursing system worked and I loved the prison where caught ‘cursers’ were sent (many by Kellen) to have them nullified. There was also a very entertaining sequence where the pair visit a ‘cursed’ village and they realise that the locals might not want the curse lifted! (They had their reasons and this was also a nod to something you might see in a Terry Pratchett novel).


The land of Raddith is a brilliantly described setting; beautiful, menacing, populated by strange creatures and full of inhabitants with real fear of the unknown and potential curses which could come unexpectedly and from anyone. It is so vividly described that children will truly be able to let their imaginations run wild in this fantastic land as they get wrapped up in the crazy exploits of Nettle and Kellen. This is fantasy fiction at its absolute best, which is loaded with beautifully crafted sentences, deep meaningful relationships and engaging mini mysteries as the story advances to a terrific ending. Highly recommended.


Tony Jones

Ricky's Hand by David Quantick 
​ Publisher ‏ : ‎ Titan Books (9 Aug. 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1803360461
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1803360461

A Book Review by Jim Mcleod 

An effective blurb for this well written and unnerving slice of Welsh folk horror. Unfolding as a series of interviews, press clippings and emails, this is not a traditional narrative.  Yet it works well. This is the first thing I’ve read by the well-regarded Bestwick, and I was really excited to dig in.

It’s a long book, split into distinct sections highlighting different parts of the central mystery of the titular mountain. We have strange occurrences, figures glimpsed in woods, madness and a fair amount of death. Each section is well written, with a creeping sense of dread to most of it.

Bestwick introduces a bewildering array of names and places in the first section and I found myself thumbing back to check names – and I say this as a Welshman. It soon clicks into place though, and the opening narratives are superb. Highlights include the police interview with Russell Ware and the diary of the boy with the abusive father which is well done even despite re-treading familiar ground.

The novel was originally published as a serial which means there is a fair amount of repetition, particularly in the middle. This can grate a little. However, when Bestwick goes further back in time, he brings a much-needed change of gear with a historical tale of a priest and a further one of a Roman centurion. Both of these sections are excellent and high points of the book. They lead into the final third, which is best of all. Bestwick introduces himself as a character, which I usually find wince inducing (think Stephen King in The Dark Tower or Martin Self in, well, just about anything), but it really works here and adds to the tale.

These last few sections turn this into a recommended read, but with a slight hesitation. It is probably best approached as originally intended – to be read over a period of months rather than days.

Ultimately, I enjoyed my time in North Wales and think you will too.