Kicking off this delightful collection is A Bad Dream, a tale of guilt and paranoia built around a late night knock at the door and a horrifying revelation. For me, the revelation would have been enough in a perfect Tales Of The Unexpected type finale. For the story to then carry on seemed unnecessary, lessening the gut punch revelation. Evolved focuses on a killer that uses his psychic abilities to find victims, but what if the tables were turned? This was my second favourite tale in the collection. A very interesting premise that I could see being expanded into a full length novel. Bereavement and loss are the central themes of An Impression Of Grief. Having recently lost his wife in an accident, an artist seeks to ease his grief and find answers through his art. The Farmhouse is the true gem of this collection, a haunted house story told in three parts. White here seems to of found his comfort zone, the phrasing and descriptive passages were wonderful to read. Easily my favourite story, with part two having a really strong Hammer Horror vibe and a twist that had me smiling and eager to push on towards part three.

Macabre Notions succeeds in highlighting that Aaron White knows how to tell story. All four tales had their moments but it was The Farmhouse that stood out for me. Showing that although White is more than capable at the short story, being able to spread his wings and having more room to breath and tell a story may be where the author finds his true calling.

Thirteen years after the Blyton Summer Detective Club solved their greatest case by revealing who the The Sleepy Lake Monster was at the  Deboën Mansion, Andy (Andrea) Rodriguez decides to get the gang back together. Andy is running away from her past and trying to forge a future with Kerri, who works in a bar although a scientist. Together they helped form the BSDC alongside Peter, who despite being incredibly successful, took his own life and Nate who still, bizarrely, talks to Peter and often admits himself to the local asylum. Completing the group is Tim, a dog that is the offspring of the original clubs dog, Sean. The BSDC are all now troubled young adults, they saw something else that day back in 1977 and it's now time to return to Blyton Hills to face their demons.


The premise for the book had me genuinely excited, Scooby Doo was (and probably still is) one of my favourite cartoons. The characterisation is different enough to avoid a lawsuit, but this novel is essentially grown up Scooby Doo. The core storyline is great fun with all the tropes you would expect from the Hanna Barbera classic but seen from more mature eyes all tied off with a Cthulu bow. Yes, that's right, Cthulu! There's some weird stuff going on in and around the Deboën Mansion. No wonder the BSDC have scars that won't heal.

This book could have been a solid 5/5 had it not been for several choices by the author that I found quite surprising and at times, irritating. I went into this book expecting an interesting juxtaposition between the zany kids story of '77 with it's rubber masked villains, to the current day tale of troubled young adults facing very real dangers. And that's exactly what we had for the first third of the book, that is until *minor spoiler* the gang break Nate out of the asylum. I'm not sure Scooby Doo in its prime would come up with such a comedic way of breaking someone out. I've gone from developing a relationship with these 'real' characters for them to morph into cartoon caricatures. If I had known this was Canteros intention I would have approached the book from a very different angle. From that moment on, it was difficult to take the characters often angst ridden woes seriously, for me, the story would have worked so much better had it kept its comedic mask on all the time. Don't get me wrong. the characters are great, but they work better for me as the characters from a cartoon. I don't need to know that Fred is desperately in love with Daphne, who in turn is in love with Velma. Or that Shaggy came from a broken home and that Scooby only went along as they were all feeding his crack habit. Obviously they aren't spoilers but you get my point.

The prose is all over the place in Meddling Kids, it switches from second to third person and even moves to a script format (with stage directions). I found it quite off-putting, taking me out of the book at times, additionally a lot of the exposition seemed to have one sentence too many, which made for a sticky reading experience. I know that Canteros first books were not written in English, it did make me wonder if Meddling Kids had also been written in Spanish and then translated poorly. And if that doesn't make you scratch your head, Cantero also throws made up words into the equation! These certainly took me out of the book, I had to reread, even google some of them to decide if I misunderstood something.

Meddling Kids made for a frustrating reading experience. There is a great story here, with fantastic set pieces and plenty of action. I'd ordinarily recommend you give it a go, but with the issues I've highlighted, although not book ruining, do make the book a challenge. Which is a real shame as this could have easily been Scooby Doos greatest adventure!

What if Lovecraft’s protagonists- instead of wussing out and descending into madness- had decided to lace up a sturdy pair of Doc Martin’s and kick Cthulhu in the dick? Well,  Brockway’s Vicious Circuit series is what you’d get.

Aged punk Carey is back again where his only super power his frankly astonishing lack of fucks to give. So too is Kaitlin, a woman whose innate pragmatism is terribly at odds with her destiny as a slayer of impossible beasts. Also returning are their enemies, a motley assortment of freaks that might knife you in a back alley, or might erase your very essence to fuel the machinery of the universe.

Shifting from busted-knuckle violence to bad-trip existential dread with nary a blink, Brockway tells a tale with high stakes, lovable characters and wry humour. And let’s not forget just how wonderfully original it all is. Brockway builds a cornucopia of supernatural horror that’d make Pinhead smile, and he does it with an admirable determination not to rummage through the usual pseudo-spiritual detritus from which many horror authors pick their bricks.

I’ve gushed before about the ambition of Brockway’s horror mythos, how it pile-drives us into the visceral before punting us into the aether, but it is not just the sheer scale of this mythos that impresses, but rather the neatness of it. He never falls into the familiar genre ground of presenting the unsettling just for the joy of it, and then shrugging when pressed for explanations. His abominations, processed as they are through the view points of his extremely down-to-earth protagonists, are presented as strangely logical. Every impossible freak that comes along has a distinct rhyme and reason, fitting neatly into the weird evolution of Brockway’s nightmare world.

But please don’t think I’m engaging in some artsy-fartsy pseudo intellectual wankery here. The Vicious Cycle series is devoid of pretension, almost aggressively so. No hipster handbook this, though it will certainly appeal to that ilk. Brockway keeps us firmly in the mud while cursing loudly at the stars.

There’s action. Tons of action. Riding-a-roller-coaster-and-punting-the-heads-off-your-enemies action. A book like this is crying out for a screen adaptation because the pace is relentless and it’s crammed with effortless cool. But there’s enough heart and smarts that you never feel like you’re reading a fleshed out b-movie script. It’s like ordering a drive-thru burger and finding prime steak between the buns. Delicious, gooey, and guilty as sin, but of undoubtable quality.

I’ve followed the development of this series since Brockway first touted his ‘punks vs math’ concept, and it’s gone from strength to strength. It’s rare that the third instalment of a trilogy surpasses its forebears, but here we are. Reading this series was that rare delight of finding something that is wholly its own while scratching itches you didn't even realise you had.