For those of you who missed it, Yorkshire writer Craig Wallwork’s Bad People, was a fantastic and unexpected welcome to the thriller genre at the beginning of the year. Not one to rest on his laurels, Labyrinth of Dolls takes the horrors of the first book, ramps them up a few gears and means that you’ve never looked at dolls the same way since you saw Child’s Play.
 
LOTD picks up following Bad People, lots of the same characters return and while you can probably get by not knowing the full backstory, you’d be doing a disservice to yourself and this novel by doing so. Tom Nolan returns, the aging detective who rather than relishes his previous successes, carries the scars and the trauma from what he’s seen across his career. It’s one of the strengths of the novel, that Nolan is relatable, like a hero returning from war. He’s brilliant in his deductions, always slightly ahead of the reader but never in a way that feels forced, or that he’s some Sherlock Holmes who can figure it all out before it starts. He is equally flawed and relies on other people in the force, intellectually and emotionally – which also means that side characters and love interests are more developed, more relatable and not just relegated for romance and exposition.
 
The novel ramps up the gore, even when you know a death is coming, you’ll be quick to bite your lip or have to put the novel down. The deaths are detailed and bloody, making you wonder if Wallwork is on some sort of watch list. They don’t let up either, the blood spills and the twists keep turning till the end of the novel. By the final chapter you’ll not be sure who to trust, who is good, who is safe.
 
The whole novel is kept secure by how strong of a writer Wallwork is. His prose is always tight, nothing feels unnecessary and the descriptions and general tone he gives the novel is so confident that it feels like you’re watching it all unfold in front of you, rather than ever feeling like you’re doing the heavy lifting filling in the blanks. This is further cemented by how unpredictable the novel is, but never at the expense of feeling cheap or cheated, instead it just shows that the author is always thinking ahead, and that the detective may be better than we previously thought.
 
Readers will have to suspend disbelief, especially part way through LOTD, not that it ever feels outlandish but that Yorkshire seems to have the highest rate of creative serial killers around. The novel does address this, and it wouldn’t be as exciting a novel if it wasn’t out there, but there is the element that you think the criminal conspiracy that unfolds would be bigger news.
 
Labyrinth of the Dolls proves that the excitement and brilliance of Bad People wasn’t a one off. Though it’s hard to rank them so close to reading them together, no matter which one wins, the other isn’t trailing far behind. If you’re looking for an exciting and well-written thriller series, the Tom Nolan books provide just that. Plus, you may need him to protect you, too, because there are an awful lot of bad types out there….

EVIL HAS A NEW FACE
It's been one year since the horrific murders of Stormer Hill, and the events of that time continue to resonate with Detective Constable Tom Nolan. In an attempt to find the second killer, known only as the Ragman, Nolan joins West Yorkshire's Murder Investigation Team.

Partnered with Jennifer Morrison, a straight-talking detective with her eye on promotion, the two officers are assigned to track down a new killer whose victims are all found dressed like human dolls. As the investigation progresses, Nolan becomes an intricate piece in the killer's grand vision that puts his life in danger.

But with the body count rising daily and the pressure to find who the media is labelling the Doll Maker increasing, Nolan discovers more than just a series of grisly murders...

Within the human dolls, the answers he has sought for nearly a year may finally be found.

Black Cranes: A Tale of Unquiet Women is a horror anthology of stories written by ten different Asian people, about Asian women. It is edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn, who both also contributed stories, and will be released in September 2020 by Omnium Gatherum (the small press, not the metal band from Finland – though this anthology and that band’s songs have an edge of brutality in common!).
 
It has taken me ages to figure out how to write this review, because I simply didn’t know where to start talking about it. Black Cranes gives you a lot to think about, so I slept on it, thinking that I’d wake up with a more clear idea of how to go about discussing it. I was wrong! I woke up with twice as many things swirling around my head as there were before.
 
This is a collection that doesn’t preach to the reader but it will teach you things. In the foreword, written by the wonderful Alma Katsu (The Hunger), she asks:
 
“What does it mean to be an Asian woman? The whole world thinks it already knows what we are about. We are usually reduced to one of two stereotypes.”
 
And she is absolutely right. Asian women are mostly perceived as stereotypes in the western world as either Geishas or Dragon Ladies (so says Alma). I like to think I’m a liberal and non-judgmental person but I sat there thinking ‘oh no… I pictured the stereotypes before she even mentioned them’. She goes on to talk about the expectations put upon Asian women, the familial obligations, the tremendous sacrifice to the self they have to make in order to be subservient to the men in their societies. They are dehumanized, negated as individuals, and often fetishized. I sat there questioning my ignorant perception of the eastern world and its people and beliefs and folklore, alarmed and ashamed in my realisation that really, just like Jon Snow, I know nothing.
 
My ignorance of the many eastern cultures has never been intentional, but the extent of my ignorance became apparent to me for the first time in my life in reading Alma’s words. I wondered how much of what I thought I knew to be true was formed by growing up in a generally insensitive and apathetic Western society that, as whole, doesn’t tend to take the time to learn or teach its children about people who are from other places that are deemed to be exotic.
 
Why have I never taken the time to learn more? Why is it that despite my incredible love of “all” things horror, I am mostly familiar with western folklore and superstition? There’s an entire other side of the world with different tales and traditions and all I know of them came to me through American remakes of Japanese and Korean works. What exactly are the pressures that Asian women face, and how do they differ from country to country, and how are they unique in the plights they face? Where do their fears and their strengths come from? How is this translated through story telling? I knew this anthology was something special as I turned those first few pages because if a foreword can make you think that much, then imagine what the stories can do.
 
If I were to write about each individual story, I fear this review would never end, so I’m just going to talk briefly about a few in particular that stayed with me. This is not, by any means, a slight on the stories that I don’t mention. Every writer in this anthology is of a remarkable calibre, each with significant professional and creative achievements that include numerous prestigious literary award nominations and wins. The writing is top-notch all around and I honestly can’t criticise that aspect of the book in any capacity.
 
Angela Yuriko Smith, for me, is something special. She contributed two stories, Skin Dowdy and Vanilla Rice, both of which explored themes of the aesthetic values placed on women, with a touch of self-loathing thrown in. It is perhaps disturbing that I empathised with these women so much and I found myself engrossed in their sad, horrific situations. My only criticism is that I wanted more! Both stories ended exactly where they should have, but it was a great disappointment to find myself on the last page each time. Most definitely a writer I will be seeking out in the immediate future.
 
The Ninth Tale by Rena Mason opened my eyes to a whole new world of magic and intrigue that I was completely unaware of. I had never heard of a fox spirit before, though I read elsewhere afterwards that they are common in eastern folklore. This story was fascinating, intriguing, and wonderfully told.
 
Rites of Passage by Gabriela Lee had me squirming in my seat. I was engrossed from the first page and the sense of dread and horror I felt intensified with each page I turned. I don’t think it quite falls into the body horror category, but in some respects, it’s not far off. This one, I feel, is particularly horrifying to those of us who already find the idea of pregnancy terrifying.
 
Lastly, I couldn’t possibly end this review without mentioning Phoenix Claws by Lee Murray. I swear, it gave me anxiety. I was enthralled, disgusted, and on the edge of my seat. I felt so stressed for the protagonist, but you know, in the good way that you hope for when you’re reading a horror story.
 
Overall, this anthology is outstanding. There were stories I preferred over others, but none that I didn’t enjoy. I was introduced to a new world of monsters and creatures, and not only were the writers of these tales skilled enough to bring them to life in the most beautiful/horrific ways, but they made me want to delve deeper into Asian folklores and mythologies.
 
The general tone of the book made my heart ache, and I mean that as high praise. There was a melancholy to it that came out of a very strongly represented notion of ‘otherness’. I want to feel for the characters when I read, especially when I read horror, and I felt for every one of the characters living in these pages. The unique anxieties experienced by Asian women were so masterfully penned here that reading it really was an eye-opening experience. The themes were seamlessly woven in to the narratives in a way that both tugged at my heartstrings and filled me with dread.
 
I would recommend this anthology to everyone – there’s a huge range of narrative styles with every writer sounding entirely different from the last, and there’s also a range of sub-genres to enjoy. Sci-fi, fantasy, mystery… there is nothing ‘samey’ as you go from story to story in this anthology.
 
This is a 4 out of 5 stars for me, only losing that one star because some of the stories leaned much more into fantasy, for example, than horror, and this is a horror anthology after all. I don’t have to feel scared every time, but I need to feel at least tense, or a sense of foreboding, or dread, and some just didn’t get there for me. But that really is my only criticism.
 
The phrase, ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ is defunct in this case – the cover (by Greg Chapman) is magnificent and a perfect reflection of what you’ll find inside. Go ahead and order it – you won’t be disappointed.
 
I never know how to end a review so.
 
Bye.

​Almond-eyed celestial, the filial daughter, the perfect wife. Quiet, submissive, demure. In Black Cranes, Southeast Asian writers of horror both embrace and reject these traditional roles in a unique collection of stories which dissect their experiences of ‘otherness’, be it in the colour of their skin, the angle of their cheekbones, the things they dare to write, or the places they have made for themselves in the world.

Black Cranes is a dark and intimate exploration of what it is to be a perpetual outsider.

Evil never truly dies... and some legends live forever. In Dracula's Child, the dark heart of Bram Stoker's classic is reborn. Capturing the voice, tone, style and characters of the original yet with a modern sensibility this novel is perfect for fans of Dracula and contemporary horror.

It has been some years since Jonathan and Mina Harker survived their ordeal in Transylvania and, vanquishing Count Dracula, returned to England to try and live ordinary lives.

But shadows linger long in this world of blood feud and superstition - and, the older their son Quincey gets, the deeper the shadows that lengthen at the heart of the Harkers' marriage. Jonathan has turned back to drink; Mina finds herself isolated inside the confines of her own family; Quincey himself struggles to live up to a family of such high renown.

And when a gathering of old friends leads to unexpected tragedy, the very particular wounds in the heart of the Harkers' marriage are about to be exposed...
​
There is darkness both within the marriage and without - for new evil is arising on the Continent. A naturalist is bringing a new species of bat back to London; two English gentlemen, on their separate tours of the continent, find a strange quixotic love for each other, and stumble into a calamity far worse than either has imagined; and the vestiges of something forgotten long ago is finally beginning to stir...

The world of Splatterpunk intrigues me. Established as a sub-genre of horror in the 1980s, its creations verged on the extreme, often including high levels of gore, violence and abuse, along with a liberal sprinkling of counter-culture themes. Often the gore and violence were accompanied by eroticism verging on dark porn, abuse of drugs and drink, unhinged characters and a healthy nod towards the darkest traits found within the human species.
​
In the mid-1990s, interest in Splatterpunk seemed to be on the decline, and a number of the leading creators in the genre drifted more into the mainstream. It could be argued that they actually stayed where they were and readers became more accepting of extreme themes, so the mainstream actually encompassed Splatterpunk, to the point where it no longer required its own term as a differentiator. Either way, it was a less prominent genre.

Fast-forward to today, and Splatterpunk is enjoying something of a revival, albeit with a small but selective audience. The genre itself has also expanded, and readers of Splatterpunk are accepting of a wide range of themes alongside extreme horror. These include – but are not limited to – bizarro fiction, erotic horror, weird westerns and fucked-up dystopian scifi. Basically, if it’s extreme and has something splattery, it’s of interest.

Personally, I have an interest in the wider world of modern Splatterpunk. It’s a genre I read a lot, and it’s a genre I write in. That might make me a harsher critic, or a more sympathetic one; I’ve yet to decide which way the axe falls. One thing I do know is in my opinion, Splatterpunk isn’t best served as a barrage of shock, a graphic and unrelenting chronology of extreme actions serving no other purpose than to offend or upset the sensibilities.

Good Splatterpunk needs a balance, a counter to the extreme. It needs a well-constructed story, or moments of humour, or some degree of cerebral intensity to work alongside the extreme elements. Without that, it sometimes feels too over the top, almost fake.

So what about Welcome to the Splatter Club? This anthology is probably best considered as a sampler of today’s more evolved Splatterpunk generation. A collection of 13 stories, it features work which comes from the extreme horror roots of the genre, along with some splinters of bizarro fiction, a few erotic horror tales and a smear of strange scifi.

For those who are new to Splatterpunk, there’s nothing too extreme in the collection. I say that, but my tastes might be dubious compared to pure horror fans with a more purist approach. As an example, I still think The Exorcist is one of the finest comedy films I’ve ever seen!

As with any collections, there are ups and there are downs, but I dare say these will change for many readers based upon where their interests lie.

For me, the highlights mainly fell at the end of the collection. The last two stories – The Woman in the Ditch by Joshua Rex and Cheese by KJ Moore – were the stand-out works, for very different reasons. The Woman in the Ditch has a folk-horror vibe, but carries with it a haunting feel which moves it from being a horror story into a comforting but confrontational tale about circumstance. It’s the story which I find myself thinking about most when I look back at the collection. Cheese, on the other hand, is very much a straight-laced story with a significantly well delivered ‘what the fuck’ moment at the end. It’s impact lies very much in its understatement, which is a rare thing in the world of Splatterpunk.

On a sheer grin-factor level, Sometimes the Penguin Eats You by Brian Asman takes a step over the Bizarro line, and delivers a story which will keep a grin on your face as the plot is revealed. It’s dark, but smiley dark if you catch my drift.

Other stories which jumped out from the crowd included The Big Bad Boy by Patrick Winters. It’s Splatterpunk but with a sense of irony, a confectionary-based horror tale and you don’t get to say that often enough! I Hang My Hat and There’s No Blood by Robert Essig is a clever tale, combining its Splatter with a smart story line which I didn’t see coming. 23 to 46 by Paul Stansfield is an unusual tale, driving the narrative from a direction I don’t remember ever reading before. The ending is a little predictable, but the different approach to the plot more than makes up for it.

All in all, most readers will find a good selection of tales they enjoy in Welcome to the Splatter Club. It covers a range of stories with differing styles, and thankfully lacks the sort of work which delivers a one-dimensional catalogue of abuse and violence. Sadly, too many readers who are new to the genre believe Splatterpunk is formed of little else than a body of work designed to be offensive and outrageous. This collection shows that not to be the case.
 
Review by Peter Caffrey 

Splatter (adj.) - characterized by extreme or excessive gore or violence
Punk (adj.) - often referring to a musical genre of short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often containing subversive lyrics and social and political commentary.
Welcome to the Splatter Club is thirteen stories of hyperintensive horror with no limits!
Editor K. Trap Jones guides this initiation into our favorite genre of dark fiction: Splatterpunk
The ceremony includes black magick curses, encounters of the fourth kind, and bizarre office politics. Story settings range from a dystopic United Kingdom down to the a convenience store stocking a very malicious product.
Praise for the editor and authors:
"There's a new generation of horror writers bursting onto the scene, and K. Trap Jones is one of the leaders of the pack." ~ Edward Lee, author of Header
Fantastically warped and wonderfully twisted, John McNee is a writer with a towering imagination, and he knows how to use it."
~Victor Gischler, Edgar Award-nominated author of Gun Moneys and Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth.
"Nikki Noir is a sultry new voice in erotic horror, one you should watch as closely as a black widow in your bed sheets." ~ Kristopher Triana, Splatterpunk award-winning author

 
Pivot is the first book in the Jack Harper Trilogy, as the front cover will tell you. I intentionally avoided reading anything about Pivot before I started it because I prefer to go into a book blind, so I’ll keep this part brief.
 
Jack Harper is a cute little girl who is ‘adopted’ by a mysterious man named Cyrus and she lives in a rich, lavish home, and is taught the usual things; Maths, English, Science, Murder…. You know, that old chestnut. It quickly becomes apparent that (murder aside), this is no ordinary house and Cyrus is no ordinary man. When the birth parents are away, the supernatural comes out to play. The book takes us on Jack’s journey through ages 7 to 17.
 
Right off the bat, I have to tell you I have some criticisms, but bear with me. As a rule, I will not put out an overall negative review of a book, especially if said book is the author’s debut. If I read something I dislike, I might rant to Nick – my poor, suffering partner who just sits there minding his own business until I burst in with something like ‘well you won’t believe this bullshit!’ – but I won’t take to the Internet with my worst opinions. Not anymore. I have been told by basically everyone in my life that I am overly critical of things I read and watch, that I nit-pick, that I get too invested in my exaggerated and usually unjustifiable hatred of things, and that I just go on and on in my ranty attempts to convert everyone else to my way of thinking.
 
Personally, I don’t know what they’re all talking about. Take any of the live-action Stars Wars films outside of the original trilogy and Rogue One, for example. I don’t like them, but I hardly said a thing. Only that George Lucas fluffed what could have been an epic Darth Vader origin story…. And the relationship between Padme and Anakin went from weird and creepy to entirely unconvincing… goddamn Jar Jar Binks… midichlorians (are you kidding me, George?!)… Oh look, The Force Awakens seems to be a soft reboot of A New Hope… IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE DOING TO LUKE SKYWALKER’S CHARACTER OH MY GOD I’M SO ANGRY….
 
Ten years later….
 
Oh. Profuse apologies, what were we talking about? The book, Pivot! Let’s get into it. I will discuss some small details but this review will mostly be spoiler free.
 
The opening line hooked me right away. I read it and thought, ‘well I better get comfortable’. Cyrus is teaching 7 year-old Jack how to do a murder. It’s such an interesting start to the story, and the fact that’s it’s written in the first-person (Jack’s perspective) heightened the tension. And then, as early as the first chapter, it took an unexpected but very welcome and intriguing turn (which is why I recommend avoiding the official synopsis).
 
A problem for me that kept coming to mind as I went on was that although I was interested in what was happening, I wasn’t invested in the characters. Cyrus, for example, is a cult leader who we’re told is very charming and very loved, and we’re given a couple of examples about how he recruits people, which worked well. However, recruiting and keeping people in such an environment are two different things, and I really would have liked to read some interactions with his followers that showcased his duplicity and their enthrallment with him. Jack appears to see through his mask even though she’s an indoctrinated child, and it made me question how and why all these others stayed so hooked. I think the ‘show, don’t tell’ idea is particularly important with these types of characters, and so rather than being told that Cyrus is a master manipulator, I would have preferred a couple of short scenes showing me instead. You know, just casual, day-to-day interactions. That being said, I’m a very character-centric reader and quite often, if I enjoy the characters, I don’t even care about the plot, so perhaps this criticism just comes out of Barlow not reading my mind and adhering to my personal preferences (how dare you).
 
My other gripe was with the dialogue. Don’t get me wrong, it was fine, but I didn’t get much sense of a character’s personality out of anything they said. Even towards the end, if I turned the page onto dialogue before knowing who was speaking, I couldn’t guess who it was. I would have loved to learn more about who the characters are rather than just what they do. I should mention that this is a gripe that I have with around 70% of the books I read, and most of the time the books are great.
 
However, the prose is absolutely wonderful and reads like a writer with many years experience penned it, which is a credit to Barlow because she’s new to the publishing novels. There was poetry to it, the kind that makes you bookmark the pages of phrases you particularly liked so you can find them again later.
 
‘Magic was in the air, like a funeral slowly being replaced by Christmas.’
 
‘I didn’t understand how hell could feel so fresh when so much of it was old.’
 
Those are two of my favourites, but I could carry on adding examples for ages. The strength of the prose far outweighs my complaints, as it was such a pleasure to read. The story itself is good, and though I thought there was a slight pacing issue at times, it flowed and was well structured. Something I think Barlow did particularly well was set-up and payoff. Too often, I read books that feed in threads that go nowhere, or are pointless and frustrating diversionary tactics. Even more common is little to no set-up at all and then everything just conveniently coming out near the end to justify whatever’s about to happen. I absolutely hate that, it’s so lazy. I read Pivot making notes on small details as I went along, wondering how many of them would lead nowhere, and as it turned out, Barlow followed through on everything. Not only that, but there was nothing that wasn’t set up – everything that happened in the conclusion was clearly pre-conceived and thought out, as opposed to just being bunged in on a whim. It was tight, son.
 
Overall, I would give Pivot 3.5/4 out of 5 stars. (3 stars, for me, is I liked it and would recommend it) I think that it’s a good book for people who enjoy dark mysteries and action in their stories. It’s a promising debut from a writer who has started well and can only go up from here, and I’m excited to read more from her.
 
‘What you are makes up for what you’re not.’ – had to leave you with one more, it is my very favourite.
 
I never know how to end reviews, so bye.
 
Kayleigh x