English

The Whisper Man by Alex North

March 18, 2020 by andygraham Leave a Comment

I don’t generally read crime fiction but I took a chance on The Whisper Man because it came highly recommended. Without giving away too much, it combines elements of The Sixth Sense and The Silence of the Lambs, throws in a young boy and his father, and then puts them dead centre of every parent’s worst nightmare.

Did I enjoy it?

Essentially, yes. The opening 25% (Yes, I read ebooks) was genuinely chilling, to the point that I wondered if I’d be better reading it at day rather than last thing at night.

The last 15% or so is also an incredibly quick read as everything comes to a head.

But the middle section felt flat. Maybe it was because the opening and ending were so good, but the story seemed to lose its way. There were too many points-of-view and one co-incidence too many. All of a sudden there were a host of characters and revelations. The big reveals about the parents (and grandparent) I found a little hard to accept e.g. who they are and where they lived. The identity of the son’s imaginary friend was a nice touch and his supernatural abilities were explained at the end. But, initially, I couldn’t work out if this book was a creepy crime thriller or whether there was something more unreal to it.

That said, the author gets a lot into a relatively short space and does it well. (Bear in mind I’m not a regular reader of this genre so am not aware of the tropes and cliches.) There are copycat killings, complex family relationships that have a myriad of consequences (both good and evil), regret and hopes, and some implied moments of horror that happen ‘off-screen’ that are gruesome to imagine. All in all – worth it.

Just make sure you lock your doors and windows at night while you read it. Especially if you have kids.

It’s a stunning cover, especially when you look at it close up.

Please note I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon sites.

Watchers by Dean Koontz

February 10, 2020 by andygraham Leave a Comment

This is a good book – a classic slow-burn thriller that combines elements of sci-fi (genetic engineering), horror (characters include the Outsider and ‘Vince’), romance (ahhhh…), and a relentless increase in tension (ohhhh….).

If you’re unfamiliar with the story, it essentially follows four main characters: a socially-repressed young woman (who goes on the biggest personal ‘journey’ throughout the pages), a professional assassin, an ex-special forces soldier struggling to find a reason in life, and a government agent. Their stories seem unconnected at first but slowly coalesce around the hunt for two genetically engineered creatures: a dog (good) with human-level intelligence and something else: the Outsider (bad). On that level, it has shades of a classic good vs evil fairy tale but it is not that simplistic.

Most of the individuals sit comfortably in their pigeonholes of right or wrong. But, without giving away too much, the true monster in the story is not the Outsider (as horrific as ‘it’ can be) but the professional killer. Vince is one of the most loathsome individuals I have come across on the page: evil wrapped up in a twisted belief that what he does is almost a divine right. He is superbly written. As are all the others. So to, the locations and scenes.

The prose is beautiful. Evocative. It switches between the simplicity that I see as the hallmark of many great writers, then throws in some sublime descriptions that take their time over a scene or a moment. That brings me to my first gripe. Some of the latter got a little too long-winded for me. There were some instances when I thought the author was going to describe each plant and flower in one of the protagonist’s gardens.

My second gripe relates to the main villain of the story: Vince. As despicably wonderful he is as a character, his fate was a let down.

MINI-SPOILER ALERT!

He is so proficient at what he does, is always well-prepared, that what happens to him in the end felt rushed. Yes, he was facing opponents that knew what they were doing, but it seemed too easy. That said, I’m glad what happened happened. The guy was vile.

MINI-SPOILER ALERT OVER!

As for the non-human characters: Einstein and the Outsider. They are wonderful. There is a depth to both of them, more so to the latter (the ‘baddie’) that makes them worthy of their own sequels. The idea of having a dog with enhanced intelligence and a Mickey Mouse obsession is utterly endearing. But as mentioned in the novel, such a creature would undoubtedly be used by the powers that be for nefarious ends. (I’ll stop that line of thought here before it gets too bleak…)

All in all, Watchers is a book to take your time over.

Highly recommended.

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I Was a Teenage Weredeer by C.T. Phipps and M. Suttkus

June 26, 2018 by andygraham Leave a Comment

I haven’t posted any reviews for a while. I keep meaning to do it but my good intentions are constantly being battered by my to-do-list. Today, however, I’ll make an exception with I Was a Teenage Weredeer.

Before we get to the book, what’s it about?

Jane Doe is a weredeer, the least-threatening shapechanger species in the world. Blessed with the ability to turn furry at will and psychically read objects, Jane has done her best to live a normal life working as a waitress at the Deerlightful Diner. She has big dreams of escaping life in the supernatural-filled town of Bright Falls, Michigan, and her eighteenth birthday promises the beginning of her teenage dreams coming true.

Unfortunately, her birthday is ruined by the sudden murder of her best friend’s sister in an apparent occult killing. Oh, and her brother is the primary suspect. Allying with an eccentric FBI agent, the local crime lord, and a snarky werecrow, Jane has her work cut out for her in turning her big day around.

Thankfully, she’s game.

My thoughts?

I Was a Teenage Weredeer is a fun read – snarky and sarcastic with a (vaguely) serious undercurrent.

The basic premise is of vampires, shape shifters and other supernatural beings now living in the open along side normal humans. They, as we do, have their own factions, prejudices, hierarchies, infighting and quarrels.

This story is told from the perspective of a young woman/ deer (Check out the title of the book if that confuses you.) as she struggles to resolve one bloody bout of vengeance.

The world within a world is not a new idea but it’s well done here and the authors do a nice job of were-dovetailing them into our world.

(See what I did there? You did. Right. I’ll get my coat…)

The text is chock full of references to popular culture. These occasionally felt forced but should resonate with a broad church of readers. As well as some of those references, I’d have preferred to lose some of the banter and tighten up a few of the scenes. (There were some events that seemed to stretch reality too far, even for a book which is about doing just that.) A smaller cast of characters would also have suited me better as I occasionally found it hard to keep track of who was who. A list of characters at the back would be another option. I have a feeling that if that was done, the descriptions would be ‘creative’, to say the least.

There was one scene (By a lake. With a water spirit.) where the silliness was put on hold for a few pages. That scene was compelling reading and I think the book would have benefitted from more writing like that for the added depth, balance, and darkness.

If you’re looking for a light-hearted read with plenty of cheek, you can’t go wrong. And if you appreciate puns, especially puns about deer, you won’t find many other books on the market that grab that particular genre by the antlers like this one does.

On that appalling dad joke. I’m out.

My rating?

Four stars.

One Book Interview #54 – Guy Bennett (Songwriter)

May 3, 2018 by andygraham Leave a Comment

Interview #54 comes sliding home with a plot twist none of you saw coming…

I always wanted these interviews to feature anyone who ‘worked with words’ – authors, writers, editors, poets & songwriters.

And.

To that end.

I’m proud to say that Interview #54 features a songwriter who I am lucky to work with.

What’s more, the title track from his debut album was inspired by a line from one of my books.

In Aijlan (Book One of The Lords of Misrule) Bethina Laudanum talks about ‘tallest man syndrome’. If you want to see what that line of dialogue turned into, you can watch the video here.

Good people of the internet, performing out of Prague, The Czech Republic – Guy Bennett

Name one song/ album:

1 – everyone should listen to

Astral weeks – Van Morrison – so unique for it’s time ( and still). An RnB singer in 1968 comes out with an epic folk/ jazz masterpiece out of nowhere – nobody could comprehend how wonderful it was – it still stands in it’s own genre for me – nothing else like it.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

The White Album – The Beatles – it has everything – song writing – ground breaking production, weirdness, beauty and most importantly – lots of songs.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

Theo Katzman – Heartbreak Hits – its pop, I guess (not my usual bag) – but it’s so close to perfect songwriting throughout it’s scary – great musicians and beautiful simplicity where needed.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

wow – self promo is hard – I think the most important song of mine ( to me ) is Drive – kind of sets the scene/ message for what I was trying to say with my debut album – “stop making excuses and get out there and do something about it.”

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

Jeff Buckley – Grace – when I was 20 this was on repeat – moved me to become a songwriter / push the boundaries of what I could do/ or at least attempt to

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

The Black Keys – Thickfreakness – probably the album that made me move to London and gave me the belief that I could start a band that was different but still connected to my love of the old school greats.

7 – of yours that prospective listeners should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

Our album is very much a mixture of styles so this is a tough one to answer – I don’t want to pigeon hole myself – but lots of people are connecting with If you’re a believer – so lets go there – It’s very much in my common ground of Atheist influenced lyrics – I liked to think its Atheist Gospel.

You can find Guy here – www.guybennettmusic.com

After years on the London Soul and Blues scene, working at leading venues with top musicians. English Singer/ Songwriter Guy Bennett relocated to Prague in 2014. Ten years of the big city had taken its toll and the move to Prague became a necessary change of pace. Inspiring creativity and a realistic work ethic.

Honing his craft as a songwriter over the next couple of years. Guy created a vast collection of songs.

Needing a band to help realise these songs, Guy turned to British Blues Hall of Famer Andy Graham (bass) a fellow expat now living in Prague and in demand Czech Drummer David Landstof ( Slza , XindleX etc….). Along with harmonica player Mark Nessmith (USA) and Pianist Andrej Jurkovic (SK) they quickly developed an energetic live show playing around Prague.

January 2017 saw the band take to the studio and the album was tracked in 2 days at First Floor Studios. With Bennett adding the finishing touches At Sub Studios Prague with Producer Ian Kelosky (Dog Fight, Justin Lavash, Cechamor).

The Album is a collection of Soul influenced tunes with a retro vibe and modern production. Familiar but new. Catchy but not Cliche’d.

The Guy Bennett Band

Photos by Jiri Starha

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One Book Interview #53 – Richard Writhen (Author)

April 26, 2018 by andygraham Leave a Comment

After a short hiatus needed because of the blood-fuelled poetry and prose of the last author to grace these pages, the One Book Interview is back.

This week we have a writer who has been published in various online magazines, has published several novellas and is currently working on his first novel.

Good people of the Internet, writing out of Rhode Island – Richard Writhen

Name one book:

1 – everyone should read

The best book that I’ve read in recent years is Mystic River by Dennis Lehane. It’s a very dark and realistic mystery and deftly manages many plot threads at once. I had seen the film awhile after it came out on video and was really blown away, so when I later saw the novel at The Strand, I picked it up and read it in full at least thrice. The tone, the characterization, but above all the way the characters’ actions ring true to real human behavior all make this book something special for me. Plus, without giving any spoilers, the way it accurately reflects the true human lack of control over chaos makes for the perfect ending.

2 – you would take with you if you were going to be marooned on Mars

I would say The Martian, but I haven’t read it. Maybe Call of the Wild, which is one of my favorite books. It’s about a dog who starts out as a pet but is dognapped and forced to become a hard-working sled dog. But it’s really about surviving at all costs and finding the alpha within yourself. He fights and fights and at one point is on the verge of death but he never surrenders. And eventually, he finds satisfaction, not in a perfect life like he once had, but in the fulfillment of his destiny.

3 – you took a chance on and were pleasantly surprised by

The Lovely Bones. Every once in a while I will read something from a genre or sub-genre that I have little interest in based on the title alone. I knew I had to check this one out so I picked it up used and was pretty taken with it. A quaint story about a girl who is murdered but winds up in the afterlife a la Beetlejuice or whatever and she tries to communicate with her surviving friends and family and point them towards her killer. It had a grimdark feel to the deaths and the repercussions for the characters. Another thing I would liken it to is What Dreams May Come.

4 – you’ve written that is your favourite

The Hiss Of The Blade. I think that by my third novella, I had gotten a bit better and the style is a bit more mature than the first two. Plus, it’s a bloodbath, which is optimal for me. I’m a big fan of French extreme cinema like Haute Tension and Inside. It’s also more grimdark, with an evil king and armored guards and castles and gauntlets and all that jazz. And a bunch of blades too, of course.

5 – that has influenced you most as a person

Well, aside from Call of the Wild, it’d probably be Watership Down. There’s so much happening in that one novel that it’d take a college philosophy course to cover it all, but some of the standout points for me are the accurate portrayal of spirituality, again the survival against all odds motif, the deception between members of the same species, the betrayals, the almost god-like power that humankind and even cats have over the small animals like the rabbits.

6 – that has influenced you most as a professional

The most influential book that I’ve read in the past few years would have to be A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. Aside from being astonishingly well-written, its grasp of subtext and meta is unparalleled. The only novel that I would really liken it to is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; both of them are basically experiences like real life, and while you are reading them, the point of it all is not immediately evident. It’s entertaining, but the real brilliance in such a book is after it ends, when you are (hopefully) blindsided by the real message as the pieces fall into place like so many puzzle pieces in your mind, as you sort it out. That’s really the approach that I have now; it’s not a thousand pages that you need to throw at the reader, but rather a level of veracity and internal continuity that makes the contents of the book literally live in the reader’s mind. And few authors can really do it.

7 – of yours that prospective readers should start with if they want to get to know your work and where they can get it.

It stands to reason that my shortest, simplest novella is my first, A Kicked Cur. It took much longer to write because I worked on it as an amateur, only once or twice a month, before I became more serious about my writing. The process took about two years and four months, but I’m happy with it, though no work wrought by human hands is ever finished. The second and third novellas were much faster, taking about eight months apiece once I had adopted the “nulla dies sine linear” approach. The fourth is at about that same mark now, but is going to take a bit longer to complete, so about a year.

You can find Richard here.

Originally from Rhode Island, Richard Writhen also lived in NYC for about ten years. He has been e-published on several notable sites such as the Dark Mondays Blog, the Mighty Thor JRS Blog, Michael R Fletcher.com, Rob J Hayes.co.uk, Grimdarkmagazine.com and Ragnarokpub.com and is the author of three novellas on Amazon KDP: A Kicked Cur, A Host of Ills and The Hiss Of The Blade. Richard also writes short form stories in the styles of Gothdark, Grimdark, GDSF and Psychological Horror, and will eventually be exploring the weird west.

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Fitful Head by CJ Harter

February 12, 2018 by andygraham Leave a Comment

We’re going to take time out from the One Book Interview this week for another review.

I’ve done a couple of these in the past (Turner, The Rest Will Come, Hell Cat of the Holt and A Life Removed) and there are a few more books that I’m hoping to get reviews up for soon.

Before we get to the book, what’s it about?

Imagine you lose your mind… and something’s waiting to take its place.
Isobel Hickey’s husband, Richard, was intense, exciting and crazy, and she wants him back. The problem is she can’t have him: he died two years ago in circumstances too painful to remember. Now, she must keep going on for teenage children, Ben and Melissa, and her dog, Brodie. But how can she when nothing makes sense anymore? When she’s haunted by ghostly footprints in the snow, and a sinister stranger who knows too much about her?
When a mute old woman speaks from her death-bed, she plunges Isobel into terrifying danger, a nightmare chain of frightening events where Richard’s secrets lurk and threaten Isobel’s sanity. Now she has to fight to save her children from an insidious evil she doesn’t understand. She must uncover who, or what, is haunting her. But is she strong enough or will she succumb to its malevolent desire?

My thoughts about Fitful Head?

There are a lot of things to like about this book, but I struggled in places.

The things that stood out for me.

The opening section is great. The short punchy sentences work really well and are used to great effect here and in other similar passages throughout the book.
The prose is well written.
The cover suits the book perfectly.
The emotional fragility of the main character is nicely explored as the book progresses.
I liked not knowing what happened to the husband until the end. That added to the unease and suspense.

There were some things I wasn’t so keen on.

The timeline jumps around a lot. This was confusing at times and disrupted the flow of the text. Some of the flashbacks are preceded by a reference to set the scene up but I didn’t always catch them and had to keep checking back to work out what was going on.
Despite the main character’s emotional fragility being handled well, there were moments that I didn’t really understand why or what she was doing. The out of character behaviour may have been the point, but it didn’t always work well for me.
I wasn’t sure why some of the scenes were there – such as the events happening in the dog walking scenes. They make a little more sense towards the end of the book but while reading them they seemed unnecessary.
I would have preferred one POV throughout. As it is, there are only a few chapters which deviate from the main character and that change of perspective jarred.
The book is formatted as one long chapter, which makes flicking forwards and backwards hard.

All in all, Fitful Head is a slow read, a mix of a psychological thriller and a ghost story. It has a lot to recommend it but I think it could have been so much better if it had been tightened up in places.

Three Stars.

If you want to read about the words behind the words, you can read an interview with the author here.

One Book Interview #26 – CJ Harter (Author)

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