David A. Riley's Blog, page 48

The Return reviewed in Phantasmagoria Magazine

As well as Into the Dark, the next issue of Phantasmagoria Magazine will also feature a review by Trevor Kennedy of my Lovecraftian crime noir novel The Return.


THE RETURN by David A. Riley
To paraphrase Shakespeare, there is something rotten in the Northern English town of Edgebottom, especially within the district of the appropriately named Grudge End. The ground there is sour, cursed for centuries perhaps. The powerful Malleson family have owned the now derelict mill at the epicentre of the area for decades, a family with some twisted secrets of their own. Over the years, countless horrors have occurred in Grudge End; brutal ritualistic murders, whole families massacred with their heads removed, and many others driven to insanity and suicide by the catalogue of ghastly events there.Gary Morgan is a man with a rather shady past, to say the least. He grew up in Grudge End and when he was a teenager his drunken brute of a father was viciously butchered in what was believed by many locals to be an occult-related murder. Although having moved away from the area for quite some time, Gary’s own life has been shrouded with criminal connections and several failed marriages. He decides to return to his home town for one last time before the streets and mills where he spent his youth are pulled down for good. And to escape the clutches of some quite nasty London-based gangsters as well.On his return, Gary bumps into an old school friend of his, Kevin Cross, whose increasingly manic paranoia surrounding ‘something’ in town is just the tip of the very dark iceberg of what is to follow. When Kevin has his arm savagely hacked off by a mysterious assailant, a series of events begin to unravel, all connected to Gary, the vile Malleson family, and the deep, ancient secrets of Edgebottom. As the bodies begin to mount up and the baffled police close in, something very Old is awakening from a long slumber…Bloody hell, it really is grim up north! And down south in London too, it appears. Author David A. Riley presents us with an extremely violent, bleak, fantastically weaved tale that could perhaps best be described as H.P. Lovecraft meets the Kray twins via the kitchen sink British realism films of the late 1950s/early ‘60s. It is gloriously dark in Edgebottom, literally and figuratively, from the highly sinister occult goings on, to the East End gangsters out for their pound of flesh. Even the weather here is persistently miserable, with its torrential rain, bitter coldness and overcast skies.Riley’s story is expertly created throughout, with the narrative point-of-view seamlessly switching between the main protagonist, the investigating police detectives, the gangsters, and so on. The building tension and mystery surrounding the town is both gripping and morbidly fascinating. When the real horror kicks in around the second half of the book, the appearance of the satyr-esque being is indeed a sight to behold. A truly terrifying, seemingly unstoppable creation of pure unadulterated evil. There are the aforementioned homages to Lovecraft, more so towards the end, however these slide in perfectly to the rest of Riley’s tale, one that would still stand strong on its own even without the Lovecraftian influences.A definite recommendation for fans of grim horror and HPL alike.
The Return is published by Blood Bound Books (www.bloodgutsandstory.com) and is available to purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other retailers.
Trevor KennedyThese are the links to buy copies of this book on Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

Kindle versions of my novel are available for £1.99 at Amazon.co.uk and for $3.19 at Amazon.com.

The cover is by the brilliant Croatian artist Andrej Bartulovic.

Into the Dark reviewed in the next issue of Phantasmagoria Magazine

My horror novel Into the Dark is reviewed in the next issue of Phantasmagoria Magazine this coming weekend.


A review of INTO THE DARK by David A. Riley (writing as Andrew Jennings). Review by Helen Scott for Phantasmagoria Magazine.
It is bad enough for Janice Burroughs that she is afraid of travelling home from work in the dark but now there is a serial killer at large in London. The nights are drawing in and she is all too well aware of how vulnerable she is, a single woman, living and travelling alone. Then there is her creepy neighbour Jimmy. He won’t stop asking her out and hanging around. She tries to make as little noise as possible at home so he doesn’t catch her at the door, prompting another awkward exchange. Until one night there is a power cut and Jimmy comes to her rescue. Thinking he’s not such a bad bloke after all, she agrees to go on a date with him. Then as she gets to know him, he starts to pick her up from work in his old BMW - at least that way she doesn’t have to be afraid of travelling alone, what with a killer on the loose.
Meanwhile, Chief Inspector James Yates and Detective Sergeant McKenna are investigating three brutal murders. They are hunting for a killer who likes to slice off the faces of their victims before applying grease paint. Jimmy’s name comes on their radar as he has a connection to the family of one of the victims. He did some plumbing work for them and has been previously arrested for domestic violence against his ex-wife.
To complicate matters, Fiona, a barmaid on her way home one night, not only witnesses but thwarts an attack on another woman. Hailed as a hero and interviewed by the papers she doesn’t realise that all the publicity is making her a target for the attacker. That is until late one night Fiona is attacked in her own home and it has serious consequences. Not only that but now the police are looking for a man who drives a BMW.
But what has all this got to do with Craig, a thirteen year old boy abducted from a train station in Lancaster? Finding himself manacled and mutilated by his ‘doctor’ abductors, he has given up any hope of escape.
Janice and Jimmy soon find themselves embroiled in a set of circumstances that means they have to flee London and head north.
I first read this book last June, then when I was asked to review it I read it again. I have to say that I enjoyed it just as much the second time around. It lost none of its appeal or tension, even though it was familiar. That is because Jennings/Riley writes so well. His characters are written in such a way that they have a familiarity to them and as the reader you just get taken into the story. The whole plot is wonderfully thought out and executed, leaving you, the reader, wanting more. I know I certainly did. Definitely worth a read and as it’s only £1.99 on Kindle how could you possibly say no. Go on, treat yourself.
Into the Dark is available to purchase from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Wordery and direct from Parallel Universe Publishing.
Helen Scott.

trade paperback:
Amazon.co.uk  £9.99
Amazon.com  $12.99          Barnes & Noble $11.63

Ebook:
Amazon.co.uk  £2.99
Amazon.com  $4.30

Volumes 1 and 2 of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts now available in softcover

The softcover versions of the limited, signed hardback edition of The Fantastical Art of Jim Pitts are now both available to order online, £15.99 each. Volume 2 contains a small number of recent full colour and black & white illustrations not included in the hardback.

Amazon UK - volume 1
Amazon UK - volume 2


Amazon USA - volume 1
Amazon USA - volume 2

Phantasmagoria #10

Coming out at the end of this month, Phantasmagoria #10.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

One of the best films I have watched recently must be Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, courtesy of having a DVD of it loaned to me by Jim Pitts.
This really is an excellent film, a bizarre slice of life of three people following the rape and murder of Frances McDormand's daughter. Woody Harrelson plays the well-meaning local sheriff who is charged with investigating the crime, though he struggles against a lack of evidence that can be used to track down the killer - and who is also suffering from terminal cancer. The other main character is played by Sam Rockwell, one of Harrelson's deputies, whose character develops during the course of the film in a surprising direction.
This is a fascinating movie, unlike any other I can think of - which is like a breath of fresh air.
Heartily recommended.
And Frances McDormand certainly deserved her Oscar for her role in this - as should the others, especially Sam Rockwell.

Now TV

Just signed up for Now TV, mainly to watch the new series of Game of Thrones. But a bonus has been a box set of Dexter, so I am now rewatching the very first series. After the rather poor final series, I had forgotten just how brilliantly good Dexter was iat the beginning - right up until just after the 'Trinity' storyline, in fact.

How did The Shape of Water win so many Oscars?

It was a long time after most other people that I recently got round to watching The Shape of Water. And while it was beautifully filmed from a photographic angle, I cannot understand how such a dire mess of a story gained so much attention and respect.
Even (spoiler alert for anyone who has still not watched this film) the scars on Elisa (Sally Hawkins) Esposito's neck were an immediate giveaway about what would happen at the end. That they would turn out to be gills was the biggest non-surpise in the film! It was so obvious it was ridiculous - and unexplained. And if she was somehow kin to the "creature" how come she otherwise looks so human? And, apart from the gill slits, so unlike the "creature" in every way, apart from having two sets of limbs, a head with the usual placement of eyes and mouth, etc, like virtually every other creature on the planet?
Michael Shannon, an actor I don't particularly care for anyway, gives a phenominally one-dimensional, almost comic-strip portrayal of the jailer in charge of the "creature", pantomime-style in its grotesquery. I must admit that didn't surprise me. It's in line with virtually every other role I've seen him play.
Indeed, for me, this is one of the film's underlying and most common failings - all the portrayals are one-dimensional, almost pantomime in style - and unconvincing. As is the basic plot - which makes me look back with increasing fondness on the comparatively subtler stories and portrayals in the three "Creature from the Black Lagoon" movies of the 1950s! At least in them you could begin to feel empathy towards the "creature" and its plight, something I felt incapable of doing for this CGI version.
So, again, I am left wondering what it was about this film that gained it so many Oscars - and I'm baffled.

The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp

Just discovered The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp on amazon prime, a TV series from 1956. It's surprisingly good, with some excellently written scripts, some good acting and, probably unusual for that time, a continuous story that moves along and develops, with occasional references to previous episodes.

At the beginning of the series Earp becomes marshall for the small, unruly, cattle town of Ellsworth, Kansas. Several episodes later, when his reputation as a lawman has started to spread, he is offered the job of marshall in the city of Wichita. I dimly remember watching this program when I was a kid, though it was probably by that stage up to the sixth series in 1961.

I very much doubt the strict historical accuracty of the series, but I don't mind that. It's still great television - and much better than many western series that came later.

Phantasmagoria Magazine - next issue

The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors - reviewed in Phantasmagoria Magazine

Below is my review of The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors which has been published in the current issue of Phantasmagoria Magazine .
 
THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF HORRORSEdited by Peter Coleborn and Jan Edwards
Anthologies like this used to be commonplace once, back in the day when they were a regular part of the output by major publishers like Pan, New English Library, Sphere Books and Corgi, etc., often by editors like August Derleth, Peter Haining, Kurt Singer, Michel Parry and others. Today it is virtually only the small independent presses that keep the flag flying, though few come close to The Alchemy Press Book of Horrors for giving us such a bumper crop in nearly 400 pages of 25 outstanding stories. Congratulations must be offered to the editors for achieving this!
It would, I’m afraid, be too lengthy a task to discuss every single story, and some worked for this reader better than others, though I would vouch for there not being a single dud amongst them, so I will just highlight a few that I particularly liked. Ramsey Campbell reliably opens proceedings with Some Kind of a Laugh, which is different to but inevitably brings to mind his brilliant novel The Grin of the Dark, where laughter becomes menacing and the make-believe world of entertainment hides a terrifying horror. Samantha Lee goes visceral with a vengeance with The Worm, which would have been a worthy entry into any of the old Pan Books of Horror (of which she was once a contributor!) Marie O’Regan’s Pretty Things very soon belies its name, where masks play a key, sometimes gut-wrenching part. I’ve always enjoyed Mike Chinn’s stories, and Her Favourite Place, which is SF horror,  is one of his best, set in an undersea farm. Tony Richards’ The Garbage Men has an engrossingly claustrophobic nightmare effect and a great climax. It’s a while since I read anything new from Stephen Laws but Get Worse Soon is a cleverly plotted tale about an overly thrifty pound shop customer who literally gets more than he bargained for! It’s a very cleverly told tale. Scarecrows are often frightening creations, and Adrian Cole’s Broken Billy uses one to great and horrifying effect. John Grant’s Too Late shifts reality and perception of what is going on to great effect – and has a truly grand guignol twist at the end. These are just a few of the stories which for me stood out, though the standard throughout is consistently high. It is definitely one of the best anthologies I have come across for quite some time and I would highly recommend it. 
If the stories weren’t enough, the book is also illustrated throughout with finely drawn headers for each of the stories by the talented Jim Pitts, adding that extra touch of quality to this book, which concludes with an informative set of Contributor Notes.