Feeding Ground By John Monsees

Feeding Ground
By John Monsees
2025 Grindhouse Horror
Paperback, 232 pages

 

                How to review a book that is dedicated to me and my friend Eric Wright, the guy who got me started on reviewing paperbacks? Easy! I’ll just review it. Mr. Monsees is a friend, but I can be objective. But he does write directly to my tastes so he always gets glowing reviews! He, along with Hunter Shea, absolutely get it! And yes, the author acknowledges that this book is an unofficial Guy N. Smith crab book and he really gets the flavor down perfectly.

 

                The seaside town of Saltwick in North Yorkshire, England is in deep shit. The fish processing plant has contaminated the water with industrial runoff and it has made the local crabs bigger, more aggressive and smarter. After an attack in that very plant and a few missing vacationers, surely they’ll call off the town’s annual festival! No, the mayor wants to cover it up, in true Larry Vaughn style and that puts every townsperson and visitor in even deeper shit. Giant razor-sharp claws shred, dissect and inspect the many humans who go down in a pool of red. These crabs not only destroy humans, but they’re also studying them, learning how to take over the world to become the top species. In all honesty, seeing what’s going on in the US these days (March 2025), I should think they’d do a better job.

 

                A lesser author would have saved up the festival massacre for the climax but Monsees throws us to the crabs in the middle of the book, stranding our main characters (and plenty of crab fodder) in unsafe buildings and stores and eventually, the labyrinthine tunnels under the city where they’re still very much prone to attack. The crabs had been rebuilding these tunnels for decades. Scientist Emma Carlisle, drunken fisherman Jack, factory worker Danny and others are the  town’s last chance. But good luck, because the crabs are using tactical intelligence, cutting off escape routes, rounding humans up into kill zones. See? I told you they were smart.

 

                This book delivers everything you would want and hope for, and more. Obviously, we come for the gore and Monsees never disappoints in that respect. Entrails spill, blood sprays and limbs are severed. The gore is deliciously rendered with prose that would make Ramsey Campbell proud. Monsees, an American, serves up a British flavor that rings true to my eyes (admittedly, also American). Top shelf writing all around, though I must confess that I thought the word “systematically” got a little overused when describing the crabs’ intelligent actions, but I guess there’s no better word for it. In truth, I felt that the last third of the book lapsed a little into information overload and some repetition. Not that the climax isn’t thrilling but for a few chapters working towards the end, things felt a little bogged down.

 

                But that’s just a small bit of nitpicking. This book is to be relished right up alongside the GNS crab literature and I plan on filing it in the crustacean section of my library with those classics. If you haven’t yet checked out John Monsees’ writing, do yourself a favor and dig in. I can guarantee a good read.