AM Shine is a completely new name to me. but I loved that cover and the story sounded interesting.
And by God does it deliver in spades!
This is one of the best horror novels I've read for a few years. A. M. Shine is a major talent.
As far as I can see, this is only his second novel. Within a minute or two of finishing this book, I'd already ordered his debut, The watchers, and it will be very high up on my TBR pile when it arrives.
Back to this book though.
The story opens with a young woman hiding from something following her. The atmosphere is palpable even in the short prologue.
We then jump forward a couple of years and we're introduced to Alec Sparling, a reclusive type living in a secluded mansion who's just paid off a detective to deliver him the recording of the last 999 call made by the terrified girl in the prologue.
He then recruits Benjamin French and Chloe Coogan, a young historian and a newly qualified architecture student respectively, to investigate a hidden village deep in the countryside of Ireland, apparently untouched by the outside world for 200 years. While they're there, he instructs them to ask about a local superstition known as The Creeper.
You see the Creeper three times, first time, from a distance, the second time he's closer, the third night, he's at your window, after that you won't see much else.
From this fairly simple premise, Shine has created a paranoid and deeply scary thriller. Ben and Chloe are likeable and sympathetic protagonists. Their mounting terror as they come to believe the superstition is superbly realised, with Ben's skepticism steadily eroding.
Shine proves he can handle gory detail just as well as he can build atmosphere using shadows and suggestion. His prose is a pleasure to read, lucid and intelligent, and creepy as hell.
he's a name to look out for. If he's this good on book 2, who knows what heights he'll reach.
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