Mark Morris is one of those writers who deserves to be a household name. His novels are consistently excellent and there are a lot of them.
This one is no exception.
A familiar set-up, 6 students meet with an evil force. Bad things happen, they separate. Years later, the evil returns and starts trying to pick them off. Can they team up and defeat the evil forces before it's too late?
The set up may be familiar but the execution is far from generic. The story jumps between the five survivors of their student days (this isn't a spoiler, it's on the back cover) as their lives are slowly torn apart by a mysterious force.
They don't instantly work out what's going on and get in touch which is the usual in this set up. Morris is a much better writer than that. The lucky ones doubt their own sanity as cracks appear in their very well drawn day to day existences. The others start to crack themselves. Their reactions to the events surrounding them seem real and grounded and completely believable.
Morris is definitely channeling his inner Ramsey Campbell in this novel and creates some truly nightmarish sequences. This is one of the most atmospheric books I've read in a long while. It's a great example of how horror doesn't need to be blood soaked and violent. The psychological impact is far greater than endless descriptions of gore would have been.
This is out next month and I recommend it to anyone who like character based, creepy as hell horror.
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