The Tribe By Glenn Chandler

The Tribe
By Glenn Chandler
1981 Hamlyn
Paperback, 187 pages

                This is Chandler’s second and final novel in the horror genre and, hot on the heels of his book The Sanctuary, and the second one of his to earn Hamlyn’s “nasty” designation. I can’t tell you how much I love the fact that Hamlyn has “nasty” as a category! Does this one earn the right to be called a nasty? Yes. Yes it does. Much more so than his previous book.

 

                A bizarre string of cannibal murders have been popping up across England and Detective Chubby Holroyd is put in charge of the perplexing investigation. Trying to find a connection between these homicides is no easy task. A woman eats her fiancé, a man eats his brother, a man kills and cooks his daughter and force-feeds her to his wife… these are the cases that Chubby has to figure out. Looks like a good time to go on that diet; at least give up meat.

 

                Meanwhile, Herbert and Maggie Gunter are at the end of their vacation and back in England. They find themselves in a small village in Kent whose name is familiar to Maggie; a lovely man they had met while on expedition in New Guinea lives there. She calls their daughter and grandson to say they might drop in on him, but they’ll be back home in time for the grandson’s birthday. They don’t make it. Neither of them ever leave anthropologist Allen Briathwaite’s mansion ever again.

 

                With no main characters except for Chubby and his fellow investigators, the first half of the book tends to be a little confusing. You meet a number of characters, but they’re all just set-up for their descent into cannibalism. And what’s with the leering, seemingly alive shrunken heads? After the Gunters get involved, it starts tying together, for both the reader and dear Chubby. It’s a good thing Maggie called her daughter because when they start to investigate as well, you know you’re going to get an explosive ending. And you do.

 

                This is top-shelf gory pulp horror, and it is the very thing we all love about 80s gross-out books. This one is certainly next level (though I would say it is less vile that L.A. Morse’s The Flesh Eaters, 1979 Warner Books) and Chandler’s descriptions hold nothing back. The man roasting his brother’s head and peering “down at the golden brown face” is a scene that stays with you. Nasty for sure. This book gets quite expensive these days, but it is worth the extra dough. You just don’t get books that are this brutal very often.