Gary McMahon is not known for light and fluffy comic novels. All his work that I've read to date is moody and grim with a bleak outlook on human nature. This is no exception.
Six months after the brutal murder of his older brother, Doug Hunter starts receiving odd emails (very odd emails) apparently from his brother or the murderers. He decides to go to Leeds to follow the trail himself since the police show no interest. He has unusual encounters in the toilets of a pub and on the train to Leeds. When he gets there, he finds himself in a Hell even worse than you would normally expect to find in Leeds. The murder is linked to graffitti which has appeared stating "All your Gods are dead" and the spate of body parts which have been found in drains across the country. Doug is soon facing forces beyond sanity
In 100 pages (probably less if you take out the empty pages after several chapters) Gary takes this story from a quite normal tale of an ordinary Joe in tragic circumstances, to a lovecraftian nightmare that feels like the bastard offspring of Naked Lunch, Videodrome and Hostel.
McMahon is not a writer who depends on gore for shock. In this book though, he shows he can do body horror more effectively than most. Because he is more than capable of generating a nightmarish atmosphere at the best of times, when the gore appears, it's doubly effective.
All in all this is an violent, bleak, miserablist chunk of horror fiction. And I loved it. Gary McMahon does gloomy horror better than pretty much anyone else and this is a fine example of his work.
The only thing that marrs the book is a printing error at the end of chapter 2 where a paragraph repeats itself. But I can hardly blame Gary McMahon for that.
easy 8/10
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