BOOK REVIEW: ​NIGHTCRAWLER BY MICK RIDGEWELL

 
“Underwhelming crawl from Detroit to LA with something nasty on your tail”
 
Mick Ridgewell’s “Nightcrawler” first appeared in 2012, published by the now sadly defunct Samhain, but has recently found a new home with Alien Agenda Publishing. Considering the huge number of great books out of print one might wonder why “Nightcrawler” has another run at horror glory? One presumes the copyright was returned to the author, so why not? Ultimately though, it was a very easy to read and mildly entertaining novel, but it is not in any way an undiscovered cult classic or a revived lost gem which the genre has overlooked deserving of a fresh reappraisal.
 
It has a very simply story, and if I’m being brutally honest it is just too simple. If you want thoughtful, layered and intelligent horror, look elsewhere, this is telegraphed and holds little in the way of surprises.  However, if you want an easy diversion for a few hours this might suffice, just keep your expectations in check and you might enjoy the ride across the western part of America. “Nightcrawler” truly was astonishing predictable and as soon as the duel narratives takes shape you know exactly they are going to meet, there was no shrouding or ambiguity whatsoever. The only question is how the meeting will happen? (and when they eventually do, will many readers even care?)  The plot was that simple. And that predictable. However, there is still some undemanding fun to be had along the way. I do enjoy a good American road trip, which the bulk of this novel featured in its plot. 
 
In the first narrative we have Scott, a rich and fairly unlikable buyer and seller of expensive cars, near the start of the novel he sells a vintage Charger which needs to be delivered from Detroit to LA. As the car is vintage and very cool he reckons he’ll have fun along the way by delivering it himself. As he is about to leave he insults a homeless man who asks him for spare change, a while into the journey he sees the same homeless guy again. Before long Scott is either going mad or is being impossibly stalked by this homeless drifter dude. Scott’s disintegration is amongst the most convincing sequences in the novel as his reality turns into a waking nightmare, just don’t expect too many subtleties. Along the way he picks up a cute hitchhiker and spends a lot of time in diners. As a Scotsman, I’ve always found American diners to be vaguely exotic, but not a lot happens in many of these sequences.
 
In the second story strand Roger, a college kid is hiking from Vermont to the Grand Canyon. Roger is super-naive, has no cash, but still manages to pull a gorgeous girl at his first rodeo. This was unbelievable in itself and the girl seemed out of the league of this geeky guy. Roger then begins to have nightmares about his impending death and this has a growing presence as he nears his destination. There is not much more I can say about the plot, the stories are bound to merge, and there are no real surprises in the way it plays out. What more can we add about the character of Roger? Not much. He was such a nice guy he bordered upon boring.
 
With such a flimsy plot there was just not enough here for a novel, perhaps to would have played better as a novella or short story. Even over its short length there was a lot of repetition, limited scares, and as nasties go the nightcrawler was pretty dull and one dimensional. In actual fact the Nightcrawler could have done us all a favour and put poor old Scott out of his misery a good fifty pages earlier. As readers we know Scott and Roger are going to connect, this does not happen until very near the end of the novel, and the pay-off just is not worth it. I have a feeling a number of readers will feel cheated by this. There was also little explanation of what he truly was and the final ‘twist’ was as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.
 
If you’re looking for an undemanding easy read then “Nightcrawler” might do the trick, but with a horror market overflowing with tremendous horror novels I would instead recommend looking elsewhere on the site for something better than this.
Tony Jones