BOOK REVIEW: TWENTY YEARS DEAD BY RICHARD FARREN BARBER

23/5/2022

Corpses briefly reanimate after ‘Twenty Years Dead’ in
the triumphant new novella from Richard Farren Barber

I first reviewed Richard Farren Barber back in 2017 and having explored his impressive back catalogue became a huge fan and am always keen to check out his new fiction. Considering he has been published by a host of top indie presses including Black Shuck Books, Crossroad Press, Demain Publishing, and Hersham Horror Books it is surprising that he is not better known. I rarely see Richard’s work being discussed on horror Twitter feeds or Facebook pages and this is a great shame as his novella and substantial short story output ranks amongst the very best in the business. I was so struck by Richard’s work that I featured him in one of my Unsung Heroes of Horror articles for the Inkheist site back in 2019. Click here for a closer look:

https://inkheist.com/2019/07/03/unsung-heroes-of-horror/

Before we get onto the superb Twenty Years Dead (on Crystal Lake Publishing this time) here are some further top tips should you wish to explore Richard’s work further. If there was such a thing as a novella ‘specialist’ then this author qualifies hands down and Closer Still (2018), a tale of a teenage girl haunted by her best friend is hard to beat, beautifully capturing the angst with the terror. I rated this piece so highly we placed it 35th in our top 50 YA novels of the last decade in a huge 2020 Ginger Nuts feature. Back in 2017 his post-apocalyptic thriller Perfect Darkness, Perfect Silence was in my top ten reads of the year and in 2019 Richard’s debut novel The Living and the Lost was another top ten choice. Richard has a very restrained style and rarely uses blood, thunder or sensationalism in his horror and this trademark was beautifully captured in his atmospheric novelette, The Coffin Walk.

Sadly, his debut novel The Living and the Lost is currently out of print and I hope it finds a new publisher shortly as it is much too good to be unavailable, interestingly it shares a similar theme to Twenty Years Dead as they both concern the industry of ‘death’. In The Living and the Lost there is a council department which dealt with the spiritual ‘cleaning’ of houses after an individual dies. In Twenty Years Dead there is an occupation called ‘Family Director’, individuals who are paid to put the dead at peace when they briefly reanimate after twenty years, the highly original and core plotline of this new book.

Like Richard’s previous novel The Screaming Dead (co-written with Peter Mark May), the action takes place entirely in a graveyard and on this occasion is set over a few hours. This was such a gripping read I could quite easily have devoured the whole novella over one sitting as it had me totally on the hook for how events were going to play out in the big finish, which the whole night was building up to. Like with The Living and the Lost the author gives very little away on how the supernatural works within the context of the story and in the first few pages the reader is dropped in the midst of a bizarre situation which has a simply brilliant hook to it.

David and Helen are on their way to an isolated graveyard where in the next few hours his father Graham Chadwick will reanimate. It is not explained how this phenomenon has come around and the author cleverly sidesteps any cliches you might expect regarding zombies, flesh-eating or standard horror tropes. If you know the exact time of your loved one’s death then the exact time of ‘their rising’ can be pinpointed twenty years later to the precise minute. The problem is David does not exactly when his father died, so they have to hang around the grave and wait. And wait. He is also (at best) an amateur.

At this point the plot gets very clever, David was very young when his father died and hopes his rising will give him the opportunity to briefly get to know him better, as they can potentially share their secrets with the living. Also, David believes that the ‘professionals’ the Family Directors are rip-off merchants and even though it is not advisable thinks he can handle the rising himself, even though he is not exactly sure what is going to happen. He is rather cynical (and very funny) believing watching You Tube videos have taught him enough! Along the way there is some very entertaining patter with a couple of Family Directors who are in the graveyard on other business, all of which was totally absorbing and helped built up the momentum for what would happen at the rising of his father.

Richard Farren Barber is a highly skilled operator at building tension and developing smart and very readable stories with very neat hooks and Twenty Years Dead is a fine example. David should just have fronted the cash and paid the expert! (but where would be the fun in that?) and instead we have an inept beginner dealing with a situation in which he is way out of his depth, carrying heavy emotional baggage along with it.

After reading this most readers will probably agree that spending the cash on a Family Director is money well spent and that the DIY approach is best kept to furniture rather than restless spirits! Richard Farren Barber’s Twenty Years Dead comes with the very highest of recommendation, turning a great idea into a very readable, funny and chilling page-turner. If you have never tried his work before you will not get a better opportunity to sample his highly original take on life (albeit it briefly!) after death.

Tony Jones

Twenty Years Dead
by Richard Farren Barber

Six feet is not deep enough in this Mystery Thriller…

After twenty years in the ground, the dead briefly rise. At his father’s grave, this is Dave’s last opportunity to discover why a man would abandon his wife and young son. Against the protests of his mother and his girlfriend, Dave is determined to learn what happened all those years ago. Sometimes you have to risk everything, but the dead don’t give up their secrets so easily.

Twenty Years Dead is a novella of quiet horror for fans of Paul Tremblay and Thomas Olde Heuvelt, which explores families and their secrets.

Come listen when the Dead speak...

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.