London Rules (Slough House #5, Mick Herron) ***
I enjoy the Slough House books, but I never do know what to write about them. They’re well written and the plot is usually creative and unpredictable, but in spite of that (or perhaps because of that) it’s always the same: River fucks something up, Louisa is prickly, Shirley is aggressive, Diana Taverner is sneaky and antagonistic and Jackson Lamb is smarter than everyone else. There is enough intrigue to keep things interesting (and the Apple TV show is amazing), but I do wonder how long they can keep going before I lose interest.
This one is about a conniving Brexiteer (think Nigel Farage but dialled down a notch; if anyone wrote Farage as a fictional character they would be lambasted for writing someone this unrealistic) and a series of odd but seemingly connected terrorist attacks throughout the UK, and, most importantly, about feckless Claude Whelan, MI5’s beleaguered Top Desk. It’s a glorious mess and I had to look up the plot before I wrote this review because I’d already forgotten.
The Drift (CJ Tudor) ***
This rather ingenious horror novel weaves together three stories. A group of people, travelling to an obscure secret facility, are stuck in a snowstorm when their bus crashes. Another group of people, travelling to the same facility, wake up on a cable cart with no knowledge of how they got there, and find one of them is dead. A third group, at that same facility, find their numbers being picked off one by one. Oh, and the novel starts with a group of wild animals eating the carcass of a man who has died of a mysterious virus.
As the audience, we know that the stories are connected, but we don’t know how. That angle isn’t particularly new and I’m on the fence about how the author connected the stories, but it’s ultimately rather well done; I didn’t see it coming until about halfway through. It’s not genuinely scary and some things are left a little too vague (I know that what isn’t talked about in horror novels is often scarier than what is, but that’s not how that plays out here). The characters are flat; they serve as vessels for the plot. The protagonist’s motivation is a little trite and I didn’t buy into it. Other than that, it was pretty entertaining, the sort of book you can finish poolside in a few hours (as I did).
The Staircase in the Woods (Chuck Wendig) **
A group of teenagers goes camping in the woods. They smoke pot, they drink, they light a fire, and out of nowhere a mysterious staircase appears in the forest. One of their number climbs it, then disappears. His friends scatter over the years, but all of them feel that nagging sense of guilt for not following their friend, and for not trying to find out what happened to him. Years later, they get together again when they discover that the stairs have reappeared. They go upstairs and end up in what is best described as a haunted house via computer games (not that odd, considering two of the main characters are (aspiring) computer game designers).
This isn’t the sort of novel you read if you want depth, but the characters are flatter than flat. I kept confusing three of them because they’re so similar in speech and tone. The fourth character is a woman, sorry, certified Cool Girl. I’d say Wendig can’t write woman, but if this book is anything to go by he can’t write people in general.
The novel suffers from the curse of so many horror novels: a good idea that suffers from a dull execution. I didn’t hate reading it, but it was bland and forgettable and the idea is played out pretty quickly.
November (Thomas Olde Heuvelt) ****
The residents of Bird Street have one thing in common: they’re a lucky bunch. Professionally, academically, athletically, musically – they all appear to be uncommonly successful. Part of this is due to hard work – buy in November, their luck ends. Physical ailments worsen, depression darkens, things are lost or broken. To regain their luck in December, there is one thing they must do: sacrifice a human life in the woods behind their house.
Olde Heuvelt is a standout in the crowded horror genre for a few reasons. Primarily, it’s that his novels always operate on a highly original idea. A 17th century ship mysteriously appearing in a flower field. A man possessed by a mountain. A small town with a resident witch. Secondly, there’s always something insidious about the banality of daily life mixed with actual horror. And thirdly, the man can write.
November wasn’t my favourite of his – I still think Echo is his best, followed by Hex – but it’s still very good, and very entertaining. Olde Heuvelt pulls off that rare feat of having both an interesting idea and a great execution, whilst also making a (depressing, but probably accurate) point about human nature. November, in particular, asks the question of how much we make our own luck, and when does luck become dangerous? If you’re looking for horror that’s engaging and slightly different, then you could definitely do worse.
This novel was published as Darker Days in English, but I read it in Dutch, so whatever.
