The prolific Tim Waggoner returns with “The Mouth of the Dark” a very fast paced fusion of sleazy urban fantasy and supernatural horror. Pulling in at a shortish 200 pages it was a relatively brief read which got off the ground running with a middle-aged man, Jayce Lewis, searching for his twenty-year-old daughter Emory who has been missing for a couple of weeks. Jayce did not have the best relationship with Emory and after leaving some ‘missing’ posters in a shop close to where she worked is confronted by two unpleasant teenagers who pull a knife on him. Jayce is helped by another woman whom he recognises from the shop, she calls the teenagers “dog-eaters” as quite literally that’s what they are. They smell, have sharp teeth and look pretty nasty…
 
Within a few pages things quickly escalate and we realise that there is a supernatural parallel world which is somehow connected to ours called ‘Shadow’ which some humans can see. Those with this ‘gift’ of sight can successfully move between our and the shadow dimension. The woman who helped Jayce, Nicola, sells medicine to doctors and hospitals in modern day America, but also moves freely in Shadow. She agrees to help Jayce, realising that he has the ability to enter this other world and helps him understand it, as he has been suppressing this gift since he was a child. She also suspects his daughter Emory is missing somewhere in Shadow and has probably inherited his ability.
 
The story is set over a brief 48 hours so the opportunity for detailed world-building was pretty limited and I would like to have seen this weird world of Shadow laid out in more detail. Hell, Stephen King or Clive Barker would spend the entire length of this novel setting the scene if this was one of their creations.  Instead much of it came across as a bit sketchy and cartoony, indeed, the scene where Jayce enters his first Shadow pub I couldn’t help but think of the famous alien bar scene in Star Wars. Then it is one crisis after another as poor Jayce tries to survive in Shadow, learning new stuff all the way. It’s also very sexualised, repeatedly so, and I tired of this fetish and S&M stuff pretty quickly. Jayce also seems to have a creepy interest in his daughter’s sex-life, which was heightened when he discovers a dangerous supernatural sex toy in her bedroom (a Pink Devil) but don’t even ask what this thing does, you really don’t want to know. On a more human level it does effectively play upon the nightmare of every parent, that of losing a child, heightened by the fact that Jayce no longer truly knows his daughter.
 
Once “The Mouth of the Dark” gets going much of the novel is set in Shadow, but I thought some of the most impressive scenes were the flashbacks to Jayce’s own childhood, his mother, and that of his daughter. When looking back Jayce realises he has missed lots of triggers to Shadow which over the years he either ignored or supressed. Through Jayce’s inner voice he also hears his mother, who comes across as some sort of warning or conscience and this was very well written, especially in the context of how the story strand plays out. Along the way we meet the Harvest Man, Ohio Pig and a very entertaining sequence with Jayce trying to get his hands on a severed head.   
 
A lot of the stuff which happens in Shadow is so far over the top it is half-way down the other side, I have no problem with this kind of outlandishness, but when you are bombarded with it, much of it becomes repetitive and it loses its kick. I appreciate it’s strange, wild, crazy and so on, but after a while I was not too bothered whether Jayce was successful in rescuing his daughter or not, as my interest seriously began to wane in the final third of the novel. I have nothing against short and fast paced books, but the world I am reading about, even if it’s crazy has to click, and something about Shadow failed to do that for me. It was drawn too quickly and could have done with more flesh on the bones. Horrible creatures are repeatedly thrown at the reader, thick and fast, but lacked detail.
 
I imagine “The Mouth of the Dark” will get the full spectrum of reviews from 1* haters to 5* masterpieces depending upon personal taste. I probably sit somewhere in the middle, it was too heavy on the sleaze and lacked suspense, but on the other hand was full of wild ideas and assaults the senses in true maximum overdrive style.
 
Tony Jones

Scott Cole has been toiling in the trenches for a number of years now. He writes wonderfully weird stories and has seen his work published by Eraserhead Press and Black T-Shirt Books. This novella is brought to us/you from the fine and fucked-up folks at Grindhouse Press. I mean that in the nicest way, they put out good things. Vile and dirty good things.
Triple Axe is the story of Jesse Jinx. An adult film star who dreams of getting enough moolah together to finance her own adult film production company. Her plans run into several snags as her fellow film stars  begin turning up dead, brutally strangled with no traceable weapon. That's when she decides to take matters into her own hands and with the help of a few of her peers and a fellow with an unusual collection, she sets out to find the killer and put a stop to the bloodshed.
This novella is a quick and fun satire of the adult film industry, written in a dryly tongue-in-cheek fashion, hilarious at times and horrific at others. Cole's encyclopedic knowledge of film, seemingly all film, is wielded weapon-like throughout the book. This work is one that is sure to propel Cole to a level more than "the guy who writes those odd flash pieces."  He's got much more to offer and I feel that we're juts seeing the tip of his bizarre iceberg of talent.
It's a grossly funny and depraved, I enjoyed it a lot.
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Triple Axe is available from Grindhouse Press

Ramsey Campbell found the inspiration for his latest novel “Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach” whilst holidaying in Greece a few years back, so in a rare fictional excursion beyond the shores of the UK the author packs his suitcase taking his readers on a search for sunshine. The two main characters Ray and Sandra are destined for Vasilema, meeting their extended family for what becomes a rather unpredictable two-week holiday on a Greek island where tourists are not exactly welcomed with open arms. Each chapter is presented as a day of their jaunt, which gets increasingly stranger with each passing day. Go to Blackpool next year folks!
 
The novel opens like most foreign holidays do; lost luggage, passport scares, short tempers and missed transport connections to their island destination. What did I say about Blackpool Ramsey?  Ray and Sandra are retired teachers who have invited their two children, their spouses and their three grandchildren on an exciting foreign holiday, their first visit to Greece. They are staying in apartments not far away from the party resort town of Sunset Beach. Ray and his wife have a more serious reason for bringing the whole family together, but in the early stages of the story we are unaware of what this is.
 
I really enjoyed “Thirteen Days at Sunset Beach” but it did move at a slow pace and if you have never read Ramsey Campbell before then perhaps this novel is not the best of introductions to his wide body of work. For the uninitiated there are so many to recommend, my three personal favourite novels are probably “Creatures of the Pool”, “Grin in the Dark”, “The Darkest Part of the Woods” and the excellent recent novella “The Booking” which I previously reviewed on Ginger Nuts. Of his short stories, take your pick, he has countless wonderful ones and continues to set the bar incredibly high for short horror fiction. Even if you’re familiar with his work you’ll probably fine this one a little bit left of field. However, nobody does the everyday uncanny better than Campbell, and even though the majority of the scenes are during the day, on the beach, in sunshine, or in restaurants he still has the ability to conjure unsettling and unnerving situations. As the family bicker they are unaware of the strange influence which has shrouded them, but we the reader see it and are more aware of their predicament.  
 
The supernatural elements are hinted at gradually and take their time to filter into the story. If you’re more of a horror quick thrill seeker then this might not be the book for you and the languid pace and lack of action may test your patience. It depends on what you enjoy, personally I didn’t mind the leisurely direction the story took and enjoyed the way the author slowly dropped breadcrumbs which hinted at the bigger picture, although some of these were too obvious. The novel had many highlights, including the shared and recurring dream sequences paralleled nicely with the increasing sense of dread Ray feels as the novel develops.
 
The island itself of Vasilema was a great creation and location. Remind me never to visit this dump folks (don’t worry it exists only in the imagination of the author). We are told this particular Greek island is relatively new to tourism, but nobody genuinely expects sellers or vendors to literally shun tourists or almost reject a sale. The family are given veiled hints; there are no mirrors in the apartments, buses don’t run after 8pm, people pray for them and the group are refused entry onto tour boats. This is a really strange island. Which the visitors put down to the poor English skills of the locals or their weird local customs. Campbell builds some great scenes out of very ordinary circumstances, for instance, Ray loses a book a local seller has given him on the local area. He then believes he sees someone deliberately ripping it up on the beach. What does he do?
 
Much of the novel is seen through the eyes of Ray, and he is the first to realise there is something dangerous going on, unfortunately nobody else in the family takes him seriously and find him mildly embarrassing. Ray was a likable and sympathetic character; he’s old, but not quite washed up yet, but there is a certain sadness attached to him and his long marriage to Sandra. Some of the other family members were not quite so engaging, including the two teenagers who were rather dull. However, the youngest grandchild, William, is touched in a different way and these were excellent sequences, with the scared little boy certain someone or something had been visiting his room. Not surprisingly and realistically, with family holidays tension is never far away, but after a while the constant backbiting began to grate with the respective spouses, for instance, arguing about how much of a tip was to be left.
 
When it comes to horror this was a real slow-burner and the novel was as much about the dynamics of the family, their interactions and squabbles as it was the dark heart of the island which has targeted them. Overall though it was a good balance of a domestic and supernatural story and I’m sure Ramsey Campbell fans will find much to enjoy and make intricate comparisons to his other novels.
 
Tony Jones