Number 30 - The Tomb - F Paul Wilson

 

This is listed on Wilson's website as part two of the series begun in his novel The Keep that I  read last year. However, I see no links whatsoever with that novel.

Unless my memory is completely wrong, that book was vampires attacking Nazis in an ancient keep in Transylvania.  This one is a man investigating the disappearance of an old woman and finding ancient Indian demons in 80's New York.

It also doesn't feature a Tomb.  

However, despite not being an obvious follow on to The Keep, and despite not having any relevance to its own title, its a brilliant piece of 80s horror history that I'm only disappointed I didn't read decades ago.  

Wilson would have been right up there in my list of top horror reads along with King,  Campbell and Somtow years ago and I wouldn't have the game of catch up on his works that I now find myself with.

 This book follows Repairman jack (who has his own series of books separate to the series started by the Keep) in his first battle against the supernatural. Jack lives outside of the legal system. He "fixes things" for people to earn a living. Sometimes those things involve violence, which jack enjoys.

He's asked to help in two separate incidents here.  First is when his ex girlfriend phones and asks him to find her missing Aunty who vanished from her locked third storey room in the middle of the night.  The other is when an Indian diplomat asks him to track down a necklace stolen from his grandmother in a mugging the night before. There's extreme urgency and a lot of money in it for Jack.

The two cases intersect in the most horrific ways. Jack needs all his wits about him to survive and to save the life of his ex-girlfriend's family members.

This book starts quickly and never lets up.  The fast pace stops you thinking too closely and looking for plot holes. I'm sure there are some, but I didn't spot them because I was enjoying the rollickingly good adventure story going on far too much.  Part detective, part human drama, part supernatural thriller.  This book has it all. Some of the shock reveals were a bit obvious, but at least one I only spotted two pages before when one of the final jigsaw pieces was hinted at.  It's good going to hide a secret as openly for nearly 300 pages. All Credit due to Mr Wilson.

The Rakoshi are brilliant demons and superbly drawn.  They're genuinely creepy.  (and the subject of one of the biggest shocks in the book). They're easily as nasty as the vampires from The Keep (and they were the best type of scary vamps).

Repairman Jack is a great creation and I'm going to have to track down all his books too, on top of the Keep series. I just hope I can get as many as possible in these gorgeous N.E.L. covers from the 80s and early 90s. 

Is it a carefully considered, thoughtful masterpiece written in delicious prose that sings off the page and resonates in my soul? No.  Is it a damned good fun riot of a book that kept me enthralled for 380 pages and gave me a few surprises and scares along the way?  Hell yes! This is a cracking good read and you all should track down a copy for yourselves.