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.

Return of the Living Dead By John Russo

Return of the Living Dead
By John Russo
1979 Hamlyn
Paperback, 176 pages

                           

                This is the true sequel to George Romero’s classic film Night of the Living Dead (1968). Russo had written the novelization for that film in 1974 from his and Romero’s screenplay and this book is adapted from a proposed screenplay by Russo, Russell Streiner, and Rudi Ricci (credited as Ricci Valentine in the book) that never got made. This is not a novelization of Dan O’Bannon’s 1985 zombie comedy Return of the Living Dead, although Russo did eventually write that in 1985. Confused? Don’t be. The film was a comedy and this story is bleak and deadly serious. It carries Night’s grim tone throughout its pages.

 

                Ten years after the original zombie epidemic (which has ended), Bert Miller and his three daughters (one of whom, Karen, is expecting) are heading to a funeral. In this area, it is common to drive a spike into the skull of the deceased, because nobody wants a repeat of the previous decade’s trouble. While there, the mourners learn of a bus crash nearby and Bert takes his daughters with him to retrieve the bodies and spike them in the noggin. When the cops show up, the Millers screw out of there only half done. Guess what happens! Bert barricades the farmhouse but one daughter runs away, leaving the door unlocked and Bert becomes Zombie Chow.

 

                A group of looters (and rapists, we’re reminded of numerous times) show up at the farmhouse and settle in with two tied up prisoners. Dressed as cops, two of them give orders to the daughters but the two bound prisoners are the real cops. The daughters are taken with the gang (except Karen who is in labor) and the cops are left to feed or be fed upon. Who will survive this pickle? Will the kid be born healthy, or at all? Will the looters (and rapists) get their come-uppance? You will read this one with dizzying speed to find out. I am a slow reader and read it in two sittings.

 

                Don’t worry; in that short time, you’ll get everything you want. Flesh eating, corpse bonfires, good ol’ boys having too much fun, and bad guys using the outbreak to their advantage. “Warm human flesh was the only kind that could nourish the living dead.” The story stays in a rural farmland area and, even though it is more spread out than Night, Russo achieves the same claustrophobia. Of course the real danger here is humanity, or lack thereof. The looter (and rapist) gang are more bloodthirsty than the ghouls, proving again that man is the scariest monster.

 

                First released in the US by Dale Books in 1978, I, as always, prefer the first UK edition from Hamlyn because their covers always rule. Two different covers were available, one for Australia, and they’re both great. The green ghoul cover even has a rare photography credit for one Ken Adams, which makes me wonder if he was responsible for all of Hamlyn’s great photo covers. The book has also been reprinted many times, most recently by the reliable Fathom Press. If you’re a fan of Romero’s first foray into zombies, this book will check all of the right boxes for your zombie loving soul.

The Howling By Gary Brandner

The Howling
By Gary Brandner
1977 Fawcett
Paperback, 223 pages

Yes, we’ve all seen the movie The Howling (Joe Dante, 1981) but who has read the source material? I never had, so I thought it was about time to correct that. If you plan to take a first read of this novel, do yourself a favor and forget the movie completely. John Sayles’ script for the film bears almost no resemblance to this book. I can’t imagine what the folks who bought this after seeing the film thought of it, especially Fawcett’s reprint with the movie poster art.

 

Karyn and Roy Beatty are the perfect California couple; blonde, wealthy and happy, with a little bun in the oven. All is well until Karyn is sexually assaulted in her home and she loses the baby and, obviously, develops some serious post-trauma problems. Loving Roy rents a place far enough away from Los Angeles, in the town of Drago, to help his wife recover in relative safety. The tiny town is peculiar, but Karyn tries to make the best of it. The Beatty’s sex life is in shambles, though, as you might imagine. Roy, who is a scumbag after all, soon succumbs to the dark charms of Marsha, a shop owner in town. Meanwhile, Karyn keeps on hearing… something howling.

 

Sure that it is a wolf she is hearing, she orders a stack of books from a neighboring town’s library, and they are delivered to her by Inez, a woman who knows quite a bit about wolves and, more importantly, werewolves. Could someone in town actually be a werewolf? Eventually, Karyn shoots at a wolf-like figure in her yard and blows off its ear. Seems like it should be easy to figure out who is a werewolf now, but the long list of suspects and the speed at which werewolves heal are two things that make the investigation difficult. And Roy is no help because he’s getting laid on the side and feeling quite canid himself.

 

The book is slathered with plenty of gore, attacks and sex. The rape scene is particularly rough and, of course, hiding away the victim and keeping her drugged might not be the best treatment. Karyn’s isolation is well established; she doesn’t drive, it’s a two mile walk into town, and Roy isn’t any help after he goes Marsha-crazy. Karyn and Inez are a team worth rooting for.

 

Brandner was back with two sequels to this one with The Howling II (1978) and The Howling III (1985) (both Fawcett), the first of which continues this storyline. The third entry goes back to the olden days. A film was eventually made that was closer to this first book, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare (John Hough, 1988). The British editions of the three books, all published by Hamlyn, have great covers and different titles for the two sequels; The Return of the Howling and The Howling III Echoes.

             Hamlyn's 1978 edition                                                      Hamlyn's 1983 movie tie-in

                                                                           

Ogre By Mark Ronson

Ogre
By Mark Ronson
1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 198 pages

 

 

    Forget Shrek and all of that fairy-tale ogre bullshit. This ogre is a massive blob with reaching tentacles that would eat that green goofball and never look back. This is actually a Celtic wormlike deity called the Ooga but the folks involved call it the ogre so they won’t sound quite so stupid.

    Richard Finlay moves from the city into the rural farmhouse in Cumbria that he inherited from his all-but-unknown relative. Why does this happen so often in horror fiction, yet it still has never happened to me? Anyway, the townsfolk hate him, and a kid went missing on his property so he’s not the most welcome resident. There’s also a serial killer on the loose in that part of the country. Finlay and his hot houseguest Patricia have to endure a home invasion scene straight out of Sam Peckinpah’s film Straw Dogs (1971), complete with throwing boiling water onto the drunken villagers.

    Like in Mark Ronson’s (New Zealand author Mark Alexander) previous two horror novels and the subsequent one, an ancient evil is unleashed by way of modern means. This time around, a pipeline being laid through Finlay’s property opens up the mineshaft that the giant blob was preserved in. The ogre itself is a fun beastie, similar in form and action to the aquatic blob in Ruby Jean Jensen’s The Lake (1983), with little tentacles reaching from the ever-changing main blob. As with all good blobs, the more it eats, the bigger it gets.

    The book slowed down a bit for me at around the three-quarter mark when scientists and ministry members set up shop in the Findlay house (because they finally believe the people who say they have seen the ogre). No problem, though, as every time the ogre shows up, fun happens. The characters are pretty basic, a few affectations but otherwise straightforward cookie-cutter folks, but the story moves quickly and pulls you in, even if most of it has been done before and since. I liked Ronson’s Plague Pit from the following year a bit more, but this one is good, and I heartily recommend it. The Hamlyn paperback has a nice gnarly cover of a mannequin head covered in green gunk that looks like it might be a photograph.

Entombed By Guy N. Smith

Entombed
By Guy N. Smith
1986 Arrow Books
Paperback, 191 pages

 

                              

           Arrow, 1986. Art- Les Edwards                                             Dell- 1987. Art-?

                When I was a kid, my mum took me to Howe Caverns, a 150 foot deep hole in the ground in Schoharie County, New York. It is a massive underground cave with a subterranean river and there is a lovely tour that you can take. The rock formations are lit with beautiful colored lights, yet the scenery (and cool air) can feel a bit sinister. I loved it so much, I took my own kid there when she was 10 or 11. With that, I think I might have gotten a little more out of Entombed than I might have had I never been that far underground.

 

                Priest Simon Rankin has been questioning his faith after a failed exorcism. To clear his mind, he packs up with his girlfriend Andrea and heads to Cwmgilla in Wales. The town’s claim to fame is a retired slate mine that has been opened as a show cave, taking tourists down into the caverns for tours. Rankin wasn’t keen on taking the trip down but acquiesces to Andrea’s suggestion. While down there, he senses an evil presence, and it all goes to hell (quite literally!) from there. His faith, whether or not he knew it, is enough to shake up the evil in town.

 

                A kid wanders off and disappears in the mine. Workers going to look for him have the roof cave in and trap them. Mysterious children’s voices, visions, and Satanism all rear their evil heads. Andrea is demonically raped and possessed and Rankin’s faith had better be damn strong to fight the kind of nastiness that now runs rampant in Cwmgilla! The power to the mine is gone so nobody gets in or out unless you happen to know a spelunker. Luckily, Rankin does.

 

                Obviously, the claustrophobia is massive in this book. The scenes in the mine, with its uncharted depth and underground lakes is a labyrinth of dark, airless fear. There are many chilling moments of anxiety and agitation. That said, at about the three-quarter mark, the narrative started to slow a bit for me. But I never doubted that GNS would pick it back up and, holy shit, he sure did! The prose approaching the climax is amazing, especially when the Satanist group is gorging on the blood of a sacrificial victim. “Like maggots in a jar, a grotesque entwinement of all that was vile.” It doesn’t get much better than that.

 

                Obviously, if you have read the Sabat books, some of this might sound familiar. Rankin seems to be a tryout for Mark Sabat, whose first book came next from GNS. (The first publication of this one was from Hamlyn in 1982.) Both are ex-priests and exorcists, there is a violated church, a body exhumed for Satanic reasons and other similarities. Overall, Rankin is a more likeable hero than Sabat. As much as we all love our Hamlyn Horrors, hold out for any of the Arrow reprints to relish the amazing Les Edwards cover.

Labyrinth By Eric Mackenzie-Lamb

Labyrinth
By Eric Mackenzie-Lamb
1979 Hamlyn
Paperback, 239 pages

 

                You know that I love me some Hamlyn Horrors! I’ll grab any one that I can find at a reasonable price. This one was unknown to me when I stumbled across it and I couldn’t resist a nice swampy horror. I didn’t really get that with this book but it had a lot more to offer, for better or worse, than a hackneyed ol’ swamp monster.

 

                Tom Davison is taking his University students on a field trip into the Okefenokee. While on the trip, one of his male students, Kirby, is taking core samples and comes up with a couple of Confederate coins (the origin of which is in the prologue) while a female student, Helen Garson,  unsuccessfully throws herself at the teacher.  After the trip, Davison takes the coins to be appraised in Miami and hears about their history and their worth. Upon returning to the University, he learns that Helen had told her father, a rich local businessman, and the authorities that Davison had assaulted her. Good time to head back to the swamp. End of part one.

 

                In part two, we learn more about Helen’s father, how he got rich and the unsavory ways he runs his business. Conveniently, the coin appraiser also deals in illegal migrant workers which Mr. Garson has been hiring and the gig is up. Garson’s top man is also a ruthless killer.  After snuffing the old man while Helen watches, things get crazy. With a heavy heart full of regret, Helen heads out to find Davison in the swamp. Kirby and a friend head to the swamp to find Davison while the gay killer and his gay henchmen head in to find Helen. The swamp is going to be hoppin’.

 

                There is a lot of good stuff in this book. The killer is particularly ruthless and Davison’s reptile knowledge is scientifically accurate. We get lots of native fauna behaving correctly which is a welcome change from a lot of books of the era. And how can you not love a book that goes into great detail about rare coins? But making the bad guys all homosexuals seems like a pretty broad stroke of prejudice. It turns out that Mackenzie-Lamb’s real-life father (explorer and botanist Elke, formerly Ivan, Mackenzie) transitioned in 1971 so I guess the author was still working out some acceptance problems. Women don’t fare a lot better though what Helen lacks in brains, she makes up for with balls.

 

                This is Mackenzie-Lamb’s only novel and it is a fast paced thriller with good points and despite its flaws, I’d have to recommend it for Hamlyn fans. It’s more of an adventure/ crime narrative than a horror, but it should satisfy your bloodthirsty needs.

Nightmare By Lewis Mallory

Nightmare
By Lewis Mallory
1984 Hamlyn
Paperback, 157 pages

 

                This one isn’t terrible, but it feels kind of like a contractual obligation book. The story, such as it is, just meanders along until its somewhat predictable conclusion. There is no passion in the storytelling. Maybe Mallory mailed it in or maybe this is just how he writes: it is the first novel of his that I have read. The book moves quickly enough and there are some excellent set-pieces but many of the settings and characters are paper-thin. But then, I don’t ask for much, so I read on.

 

                The book is about Gideon, a young brat who wants to be left alone, wants things his way, and has the power to make it happen. After torching his parents’ house with them in it, he winds up in a hospital ward, locked away from his sister. She is the only person he has any kind of need for and having survived the fire, she is the key to getting him out. But it won’t be easy as he is fucking weird, and everybody sees it. He remains silent when doctors (or anyone) ask him anything.

               

                Gideon has the power to take a person’s most intimate fear and turn it on them. Policeman Cooper is attacked by spiders, Nurse Simpson has a run-in with a pack of dogs, his sister’s boyfriend Phil was besieged by rats… or was it all in their heads? At any rate, their fear killed them, and nobody knew it was Gideon’s fault except Phil, who survived the rodent rage. Can he make Gideon’s sister see the light before he destroys her, too?

 

                As mentioned above, there are some good set-pieces, such as when Gideon drives his hospital roommate over the edge, and he cuts his own throat with a broken window. The animal attacks are fun: they are the reason I bought the book in the first place. So, while overall the writing seems kind of lazy, it’s still a quick, short novel that delivers the goods as long as you’re not looking for anything too deep. As per usual, Hamlyn gave this a corker of a cover!

The Web By Richard Lewis

The Web
By Richard Lewis
1981 Hamlyn
Paperback, 204 pages

 

                When Alan Radnor turns into Richard Lewis, he writes books for me! As Lewis, he wrote a half dozen creepy-crawlies-versus-humans novels and all of them are loads of fun. This one is a sequel to his successful debut critter novel Spiders (1978). Many of his books don’t stick in your head for a long time, but they deliver the goods and are a hoot while you’re digging in.

 

                Of course, James Herbert’s The Rats (1974) started the whole Britain-under-attack genre, but we must also credit the same author’s The Fog (1975) for the folks-going-murderously-insane storyline that also frequently turns up in these books. The spiders that return in Lewis’s sequel are a little different. Sure, some of them devour their victims down to the bone, leaving just a husk, but a mutated form of spider can envenomate their victim and that, my dear, will cause violent insanity. They also enjoy wrapping up humans in tight webs to be devoured later. Evolution, that’s what it is.

 

                Much of the book is just a bunch of brief vignettes, characters set up only to be slaughtered. One fun passage is with the spinster schoolteacher whose routine is broken up after being bitten by one of the new spiders. She goes bonkers on her class of cheeky, young students and starts killing and beating them, as well as anyone who tries to stop her. I love it when bratty kids aren’t spared! Another fun set piece is a prison attack where the trapped convicts are sitting ducks for the arachnid army.

 

                It doesn’t matter if you haven’t read Lewis’s first spider novel; when the action from the first book is referenced, it is notated for your convenience. Since we have new mutations here, consider it an all-new story and enjoy the onslaught. Derivative? Yes. Any new ideas? Nope. Do I recommend it? Hell yes! Fun, gory, stupid, 80s pulp… just the way I like it.

The Beast of Kane By Cliff Twemlow

The Beast of Kane
By Cliff Twemlow
1983 Hamlyn
Paperback, 190 pages

                Do yourself a favor and acquaint yourself with Cliff Twemlow (1933-1993). The best way is through the 2023 film Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life of Cliff Twemlow by Jake West. Twemlow was an actor, screenwriter, bouncer, musician and all-around creative dynamo. He wrote a couple of horror novels, too; this one and The Pike (reviewed here) and I’ve gotta say, the guy was a pretty damn good novelist.

 

                This one takes place in Kane, Canada, seventy miles north of Quebec during a cold and frosty winter. The Gordons want to get their son David a dog for his birthday, and he wants the massive, black Elkhound at the shop. His folks are nervous about the vicious looking beast and say no. No worries… the dog breaks out and comes to David on his own, selling himself to the family. All is well, it would seem, but the local priest thinks otherwise. He thinks the dog might be the devil himself, fulfilling an old prophecy. Even the family vet says the dog is a throwback that seems to have… human blood running in its veins.

 

                Of course, everyone thinks the priest is a crazy old sop. Until the local farm animals get decimated. Wolves are found mutilated. And then the good folks of Kane themselves start getting eaten by the local dogs. Even by the ones who were the victim’s pets! It seems old Elk is their evil leader and they do his bidding. This makes things sticky for the Gordons who really don’t want to crush their boy’s love for his pet. A pet that is using him as his familiar.

 

                This one moves along very quickly and Twemlow has a good grasp of small-town life in the Canadian heartland. The characters are all pretty believable and well formed and when shit goes down, you can feel what the townsfolk do. This book also points out that a drink of whisky will help you get over pretty much any hardship. Even death in the family and madness.

 

                No, it’s not a perfect book but it is a lot of fun at times, especially when the canine attacks are in full bloom. The gore is poured on nice n’ thick, the way I like it. A word of warning, however: there is a lot of doggie-death at one point that might have you reaching over the pet ol’ Rover a little more vigorously. But it’s nothing that two fingers of whisky won’t help you get through.

 

                Both The Pike and The Beast of Kane have been reissued by Severin Films and Encyclopocalypse Publications to coincide with the release of the Cliff Twemlow movie box set!

Manitou Doll By Guy N. Smith

Manitou Doll
By Guy N. Smith
1981 Hamlyn
Paperback, 236 pages

                Man, this one starts out with a bang. The first chapter is set in Kansas, 1868, where soldiers are looking to wipe out the Plains Indians. A bloodbath ensues and, true to white-man’s sickness, Indian women are raped. One victim, Mistai, curses them, though she later finds she has become pregnant by her loutish attacker.

 

                Fast forward to the present, to a carnival set up in a seaside town. It is a holiday week, and the place is hopping. Bikers show up and all is well until one gruff individual gets cotton-candy stuck to his beard. He violently beats the woman who accidentally did it and fucks up her kid. Brilliantly violent, it is... damn! Then, he goes on a rampage, eventually raping the American Indian woman working the fortune-telling tent. Bad idea. Didn’t he read the first chapter?

 

                So, that’s the set-up. The fortune teller is also gifted at carving figurines that she supplements her income with. The Caitlin family is on vacation and the deaf child Rowena becomes enamored with Jane, the Indian woman. Jane carves a doll for the girl, starting a chain of horrific events that fucks up the whole carnival and the whole town. Evil forces are killing people and destroying the whole seaside.

 

                Without giving much more away, I’ll just say that this is Guy in top form. Man, those first two chapters had me sweating. The remainder of the book is spent mostly from the family’s point of view and what a messed-up crew they are. The wife is an unsatisfied nag, the husband is a philandering tool, and the child disobeys them at every turn. Guy lays the violence on thick and blood flows freely. The generational curse theme winds its way through the narrative until all is explained.

 

                This isn’t at all what I had expected when I went into this one blind, but it was better than I’d imagined. Nasty rapes aside, this one was just a joy to unravel and wallow in the violence and horror. Top Shelf GNS. Another reason to love him. Get the Hamlyn version with the Punch cover… it’s the best one!

Pestilence By Edward Jarvis

Pestilence
By Edward Jarvis
1983 Hamlyn
Paperback, 158 pages

                                                      

    I really didn’t like Maggots, written by Jarvis three years after this one, despite the amazing cover. Why did I try so hard and wind up spending so much on this, his only other horror book? Do I like pain? Self-abuse? Or am I just one of those pitiful completists? Whatever the reason, I managed to snag a copy of this rare one and decided to dig in right away.

    I was immediately reminded of why I didn’t like Maggots. His dialog is all over the place, more like chatter than a conversation and his prose isn’t much different. Is his tongue in his cheek or hanging out of his mouth with a dallop of drool dripping off of it? The set-up is slow and before too long, the meeting, conferences and phone calls begin to pile up. This is what frosted my balls with the other book.

    Garry, a journalist, loses a couple of fingers while cleaning his drains. He has no clue how that happened, but it falls in place with odd occurrences happening all around the world. A young actress in India loses a leg, ducks and other animals are disappearing and the water is becoming a dangerous place. Garry gets recruited by his pal Miles to head up an investigative unit and from there, phone calls ensue. And meetings. At least Jarvis throws us a few bones in this one though, with a few bloody attacks occurring while they’re still trying to figure out the cause.

    Well, after discovering that those vile Russians have done some underwater nuclear bomb testing (tsk tsk!), they eventually find out that giant prehistoric lampreys are the culprits. Real life lampreys can get to almost four feet but these guys double, triple… multiply that by hundreds. One takes down a Blue Whale, another takes down a Great White Shark on Cape Cod (where the exploits of local man Quint and the town of Amity are referred to, in an amusing nod). The names increase as the sizes increase… Giant Lamprey, Mammoth Lamprey, Mega Lamprey… Supreme lamprey!

    OK, I know Jarvis is taking the piss out of the genre, but it is hard to tell sometimes if he is laughing with us or at us. Garry is such a cad; he makes a Guy N. Smith leading man look like a choirboy. The night that he gets news of his wife’s death (by lamprey), he fucks his secretary. Jarvis takes an 8-page detour from the story on page 100 to show us the town of Rye. This book is completely absurd in a Lionel Fanthorpe kind of way. In the end, I have to say that despite the fucking meetings, it was pretty fun and quite bone headed. The ending may be the dumbest ever and for that, I give it extra points.

The Lurkers By Guy N. Smith

The Lurkers
By Guy N. Smith
1982 Hamlyn
Paperback, 158 pages
                                            

    The Master covers familiar territory with this one, with a family of outsiders facing the hatred and wrath of the small-town locals, but he throws enough variations into the short page-count to keep the story fresh and exciting.

    Peter Fogg was a working class nothing who wrote a book in his spare time. It got published and turned out to be a big hit. He got greedy and moved his wife Janie and his son Gavin to a secluded rental house deep in the Welsh Highlands to write another book. Janie hated it; she could sense something evil in the woods around the house. Gavin hated it because being English, he was the target of his Welsh schoolmates’ ire. And there was that old stone circle up on the hill, visible from the house.

    Smith sets up the story and lets the dread seep in slowly, from the townsfolk making no bones about how unwelcome the Foggs are to the slaughter of their pet cat and rabbit, whose remains are found at the stone circle. Are the townsfolk responsible or are the ghostly druids back, making sacrifices in the name of Old Scratch? Janie has had enough and takes Gavin back to civilization, leaving Peter on his own against whatever evil forces are at work. There is something out there.

    Guy N. Smith’s daughter has said that the house in this book was based on their own home. It sounds like a lovely place, except for the brewing evil! Fogg’s stand against whatever is out there is a suspenseful stake out in the middle of a crippling blizzard and Smith really ramps up the feeling of isolation. Many twists unravel and this satisfying book can be plowed through in a sitting or two. A highly recommended non-crab book from a legendary writer.

    Originally published in GNS2: A Guy N. Smith Fanzine by Chris Elphick

The Scourge By Nick Sharman

The Scourge
By Nick Sharman
1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 211 pages

 

                I have read roughly half of Scott Grønmark’s books written as Nick Sharman and have enjoyed them all. He is a gifted writer and I enjoy his use of the English language, sentence structure and storytelling. Every now and then, I pause and admire a sentence. While this doesn’t get the book done any faster, it is yet another way to enjoy one’s reading experience.

 

                Strange things are afoot in London (again!) and folks are dying in mysterious ways. A private eye, Kiley, is almost killed alongside one of the victims and he gets himself involved with an investigation into the seemingly unrelated deaths. The deeper he gets, the more he realizes that he is embroiled in a dangerous and bizarre case. Things point to pharmaceutical kingpin David Benson and “Project Alpha” and time is getting short as people die.

 

                This one is not as nasty as some of Sharman’s other horror books, there are still some very upsetting death scenes. As much of a detective novel as a terror tale, The Scourge is a page-turner in every respect as we follow Kiley on his relentless pursuit for the answer. Yes, there are ridiculous and convenient situations to move things along and Kiley would likely have died a million times over while taking too many chances, but taken for what it is, an 80s pulp horror novel, that’s all part of the fun.

 

                I read a few reviews that made fun of the ending but for me, the last 25 pages are pure, unadulterated perfection. I almost broke a sweat turning pages and I swear I almost slipped in a puddle of blood. Fun, fun, fun with a Capitol F, dammit. This book was released by Signet in the US with a snice but less exciting cover. I suggest holding out for the original UK Hamlyn cover with the bloody eyeball. I’m not sure what it has to do with the novel but it’s a hell of a striking image!

Signet, 1980

Cover art by Don Ivan Punchatz

The Spirit By Thomas Page

 

The Spirit
By Thomas Page
1979 Hamlyn
Paperback, 252 pages

                We’ve got a Bigfoot novel here, ladies and gentlemen, and it’s a pretty good one. While it is far from perfect, it is satisfying, a quick read and it delivers the goods. I mean, it pretty much opens with a beheading!

                Two men are tracking Bigfoot across the country. One is John Moon, a Native American Vietnam vet in search of inner peace and to "learn his name", his place in life. Bigfoot is The Spirit that will show him the way. John Moon is pretty much bonkers, by the way. The other man is Raymond Jason, a moneybags adventurer whose prior expedition was marred by a lethal Bigfoot encounter. He seeks not only revenge, but to show the world that the monster exists. Raymond Jason is pretty much an asshole.

 

                Our two main characters travel state to state, even into British Columbia, tracking the beast. They finally get up close and personal with their quarry at a mountain in Washington state. Luckily for the reader there is a ski resort that has recently opened on Bigfoot’s home base.

 

                OK, I mean John Moon’s character isn’t exactly enlightened by today’s standards, but I wouldn’t call it completely un-PC. The fact that there is only one female character stands out more for me. Hey, it was the 70s; a grain of salt is often needed. But the story revolving around the two men and their searches is a tight thriller, full of action and I blew through it quickly after deciding (about 50 pages in) that it was pretty good. Some neat ideas about the origin of the Bigfoot species are offered up, as well.

 

                Page is no stranger to fantastic fiction, having written The Hephaestus Plague in 1973. You know, the one the movie Bug was based on with incendiary beetles? Based on that book and this one, he is OK by me. The Spirit has been re-released by Valancourt under Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell banner, so it’s easy enough to find now. And as Hendrix says about The Spirit, it’s a rare Bigfoot novel with absolutely no Bigfoot rape scenes. Yay!

Parasite By Richard Lewis

 

Parasite
By Richard Lewis
1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 187 pages

 

Richard Lewis knows how to handle a nature-strikes-back premise and he proves himself capable once again with another new pandemic horror out to threaten Britain. The parasite in question is a tiny freshwater worm that spreads bilharzia, also known as schistosomiasis. It’s real. Look it up. It is unpleasant. Of course, Lewis’s parasite has mutated a bit to make the disease even more unpleasant. This parasite can cause madness, gooey death and 80s pulp-horror mayhem.

 

The reader knows what is going on before the characters in the book do and it’s enjoyable to follow them as they uncover the unimaginable. That said, there tends to be a few too many meetings among the doctors, scientists, and politicians for my taste. It doesn’t ruin the book, like it does in Edward Jarvis’s Maggots, but it does slow down the narrative at times. Still, Lewis keeps things moving along and throws us some gruesome parasite action just when we need it.

 

There is a well written romance between our main character George Carson and his associate Jill Turner. Plus, George’s kid, born of his late wife, catches the parasite which brings a new level of pathos to the story. Of course, in true Lewis fashion (SPOILER), he throws in a late-story rape to show that humans are always the true horror in the world. (END SPOILER). It just seems like overkill, but hey… it fucks with you, and I guess that is the point.

 

So, while this isn’t the perfect Richard Lewis book (that would be Devil’s Coach-Horse aka The Black Horde), it is still prime 80s Hamlyn Horror and is well worth adding to one’s nature-strikes-back collection. I just wish there had been less meetings in it.

Night Killers By Richard Lewis

 

Night Killers
By Richard Lewis
1983 Hamlyn
Paperback, 208 pages

                I love Richard Lewis. He never lets me down. He jumped on the nature-strikes-back bandwagon in the late 1970s and knocked out a bunch of excellent horror novels. He wrote TV and movie tie-ins under his real name Alan Radnor, but his horror books as Richard Lewis vault him deep into my heart, right there alongside Guy N. Smith.

 

                Night Killers is a gruesome novel about cockroaches that develop a taste for human flesh. The origin of their dietary change opens the book in very gruesome fashion, with a serial killer’s poor disposal of a victim’s body. This whole opening is a grueling, gory, and exciting scene and eventually leads us to another excellent horror set piece. It’s not until 30 pages in that we meet our main characters. Like most of the great eco-horror novels, Lewis sets ‘em up and knocks ‘em down… the deaths are gruesome and harrowing. Much to my delight, there is a scene with a toddler… no, he wouldn’t go there… Yes. Yes, he did. I am a big fan of “nothing is sacred” horror.

 

                Taking place in a seedy section of London, Sally is in charge of Unity House, a hostel for alcoholics and vagrants; a place for them to stay and be safe. Her boyfriend David, a reporter (I know, an oft used trope) might have stumbled on a big story here in the East End. Main characters or not, Lewis puts them through the paces, and you never know if they’re going to make it to the end or not. The book never lets up with grisly roach killings and claustrophobic situations of hopelessness. Except for a gratuitous rape scene (really, hadn’t she been through enough already?), I have no complaints at all about the savagery Lewis ladles on.

 

                While I enjoyed every moment of this book while reading it, perhaps it is telling that when I sat down to write this review a few weeks later, I didn’t remember it very well. I had to skim through and reread it a bit to remind myself what it was that I liked so much about it. Even though it evidently didn’t stick with me, I loved it as I read it and gleefully recommend it.

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The Unholy By John Halkin

The Unholy

By John Halkin

1982 Hamlyn
Paperback, 158 pages

 

When I think of John Halkin, my mind goes immediately to his trio of Slither, Slime, and Squelch and, to a lesser extent, Bloodworm. All worthwhile reads, especially Slither which is a masterpiece of the genre. Little did I know that right after that book, he’d written another horror novel; not about slimy, killer worms, but about a mummified, severed arm that crawls to life, attaches itself to poor, unfortunate victims and possesses the fuck out of them.

 

It’s the ol’ religious artifact thing again, but the possession angle is new and modern-day Paris is fucked. The surprisingly spry, lifeless arm squeezes its victim at the elbow, hard enough to pop it off, then grafts itself on, taking over the mind and body of the new host. Pages and pages of bloody killing ensues. Set ‘em up and knock ‘em down. Just how I like my 80’s pulp horror.

 

At 158 pages, the book has no chance to get boring. The pace is rapid, the characters are good enough to hold your interest and the gore is plentiful. The ending is a kind of abrupt and there’s a bit more religion than I usually go for (being a religious relic, the arm needs to be explained a little bit, I guess) but I wholeheartedly recommend this one for fans of grisly horror paperbacks.

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Ghoul By Mark Ronson

Ghoul

By Mark Ronson

1980 Hamlyn
Paperback, 202 pages

 

                My wife was reading The Plague Pit by Marc Ronson at my recommendation. That was a pretty good book. One day, I was looking at vintage horror paperbacks online (as I am wont to do) when I stopped on Les Edwards’ cover of Ronson’s Ghoul for Hamlyn Books. Great cover, indeed. So, I called Andrea over to see the cover and she said, “It looks like he missed arm day.” Skinny arms… he missed arm day at the gym. For some reason, I thought (and still think) that is the funniest goddam thing ever. I immediately found a cheap copy and bought it, if only to enjoy the cover.

 

                While not as fully satisfying as The Plague Pit, this one is still very enjoyable. It is about the unearthing of a tomb in the Valley of Jinn in the Middle East. The archaeological team digging it (led by a woman, not a common thing is 1980s pulp horror) encounters hiccups in the form of a nearby hippy cult, scared locals, and the titular ghoul. A dozen moderately interesting characters weave throughout the story, keeping the pages turning if only to find out why they’re there at all. That’s not a knock, just an observation; this is pretty ambitious for a 200-page book.

 

                One thing that slows me down in a book of this sort is the exotic names of people and places. I hope I don’t sound xenophobic when I say that I tend to sound out the exotic Arabian names in my head, decide it’s too hard, then mumble the name as I read… “Rmm-nn-mmm”. I’m lazy. I found relief when the archaeologist’s father Max was around, though his character is far less interesting than the locals of Abu Sabah.

 

                Still, this is a fun, quick book with plenty of intrigue, claustrophobic horror, a love triangle, and deceitful characters making the ol’ opening of a tomb premise sparkle a little bit. One gripe… not enough ghoul. He isn’t in it as much as I’d like. We need more ghoul. Maybe he was at the gym, trying to work up those arms.

 

                The abrupt ending all but promises a sequel, but that never materialized. Mark Ronson (Marc Alexander) passed away in February 2020.

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Doomflight By Guy N. Smith

Doomflight

By Guy N. Smith
1981 Hamlyn
Paperback, 221 pages

It is well known that I adore Guy N. Smith’s nature-strikes-back books, but when he digs deeper than crabs, ‘gators or bats and their destruction of the human race, it can be hit or miss for me. Doomflight is an ambitious piece of writing and it’s fairly good, but not entirely satisfying.

A huge, international airport is being constructed on the site of a previously failed aerodrome. That one had failed because of countless mishaps. Y’see, the land it’s built upon is the site of a Druid circle, the ritual stones buried deep under the cement of the runways. Naturally, all hell breaks loose, with Druids, sacrifices, ghostly, old-timey airmen and a massive loss of human lives. It’s huge, I tell ya.

Smith tells an intricate tale, and the story builds and builds to a fiery climax. It would make a hell of a movie. Sadly, I got a little impatient waiting to get to that climax. It might be that I had some kick-ass books in my “To Be Read” pile or it was a story that just wasn’t engaging me, but the last third became a bit of a slog. Eh, it happens. Maybe if he threw just one giant crab into the mix…

Still, it’s hard to not recommend any books by the master. Especially with Smith’s recent passing, we have to savor every word he has written. The Les Edwards cover here is worth the price of admission, too!

This review originally appeared in Midnight Magazine #9, March, 2022.

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