A Sour Apple Tree

by John Blackburn

A gruesome wave of murder--suicides is sweeping England, leaving the police baffled. But General Kirk of British Intelligence thinks the deaths may be connected to the one case he never solved, the one that's nagged at him for John Glyde, a traitor who vanished in the ruins of the Third Reich. With the help of his colleagues Mike Howard and Penny Wise, Kirk tries to get to the bottom of the weird happenings, but the truth is far more terrible and bizarre than he could ever imagine.

The second novel by the prolific British thriller and horror writer John Blackburn (1923-1993), A Sour Apple Tree (1958) is a fast-paced Cold War-era thriller which, like all Blackburn's works, also incorporates a blend of horror and science fiction and will keep readers guessing and turning the pages until the startling conclusion.

Genres: Horror

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

John Blackburn was born in 1923 in the village of Corbridge, England, the second son of a clergyman. Blackburn attended Haileybury College near London beginning in 1937, but his education was interrupted by the onset of World War II; the shadow of the war, and that of Nazi Germany, would later play a role in many of his works. He served as a radio officer during the war in the Mercantile Marine from 1942 to 1945, and resumed his education afterwards at Durham University, earning his bachelor’s degree in 1949. Blackburn taught for several years after that, first in London­ and then in Berlin, and married Joan Mary Clift in 1950. Returning to London in 1952, he took over the management of Red Lion Books.

It was there that Blackburn began writing, and the immediate success in 1958 of his first novel, A Scent of New-Mown Hay, led him to take up a career as a writer full time. He and his wife also maintained an antiquarian bookstore, a secondary career that would inform some of Blackburn’s work, including the bibliomystery Blue Octavo (1963). A Scent of New-Mown Hay typified the approach that would come to characterize Blackburn’s twenty-eight novels, which defied easy categorization in their unique and compelling mixture of the genres of science fiction, horror, mystery, and thriller. Many of Blackburn’s best novels came in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with a string of successes that included the classics A Ring of Roses (1965), Children of the Night (1966), Nothing but the Night (1968; adapted for a 1973 film starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing), Devil Daddy (1972) and Our Lady of Pain (1974). Somewhat unusually for a popular horror writer, Blackburn’s novels were not only successful with the reading public but also won widespread critical acclaim: the Times Literary Supplement declared him ‘today’s master of horror’ and compared him with the Grimm Brothers, while the Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural regarded him as ‘certainly the best British novelist in his field’ and the St James Guide to Crime & Mystery Writers called him ‘one of England’s best practicing novelists in the tradition of the thriller novel’.

By the time Blackburn published his final novel in 1985, much of his work was already out of print, an inexplicable neglect that continued until Valancourt began republishing his novels in 2013. John Blackburn died in 1993.

Reviews

[L J Field · Rating 5 out of 5]

A devilishly plotted thriller. There is horror as well. As this book was published in 1958, the Nazis were still a topical subject in the book world. In this one a traitor who seems to have skills beyond known science reigns havoc over the British landscape. People are being killed, then their murderer kills himself. They appear to be getting their orders through the traitor who has been supposed to be dead for fifteen years.

[William Oarlock · Rating 3 out of 5]

In John Blackburn's second novel General Charles Kirk, aided by the dynamic duo of tough-guy Mike Howard and lovely dandy Penny Wise, returns to face an even more mysterious death-blight plaguing Britain, this time in the form of seeming random acts of escalating homicide. Is a psychic force triggering these murders? What are the connections with the discovery of a sunken U-Boat and the traitorous John Glyde - a malignant mind who defected to the Third Reich?

Blackburn answers these questions in another elegantly gruesome climax, something of his speciality. Also introducing another of his great themes: the monstrous and dehumanised psychic killer.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Completely bizarre and frequently terrible but hugely imaginative and Lovecraftian 'psychic Nazi' melodrama written in dreadful hardboiled prose: not at all what I expected from a Penguin Crime from the early 60s.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5. Could probably have laid it on more thickly to strengthen the atmosphere and tension

[KDS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blackburn is fast becoming a favourite of mine and somewhat of a guilty pleasure. This is my fourth of his and the second mixed-genre Cold War era thriller led by General Kirk, following pretty much the same formula that Scent of New Mown Hay set down, albeit with entirely separate story.

Whilst previously Kirk set his clandestine department up against a secret Nazi super weapon which was unleashing a fungal zombie plague, this one is only slightly less outlandish; a Nazi super weapon to unleash a plague of insanity, but with a pulp science fiction twist to it. Once again Kirk mostly drives the investigation from his office, whilst his colleagues are sent to various dangerous or exotic locations - asylums, post-War East Germany and even a sunken U-Boat off the Scottish coast. Each set piece slowly piecing together the clues which crank up to a satisfying final act.

I have to say, despite very little action, the story is still pretty good fun. The characters remain as two dimensional as before, but that's fairly typical thriller stuff where the emphasis is on plot, set pieces and using characters to functionally get things done and connect related backstories together. I will add that modern sensibilities (and the Scottish!) will be rightfully offended by many of the archetypal Officer characters and their politically incorrect views, so approach with an eye on the times.

Straddling the line of pulp and authenticity, this isn't going to compare on a literary level to perhaps a le Carre espionage novel, but it's fast paced, genre story driven escapism from a different era, seamlessly blending the genres of spy, crime, SF and horror in such a way that I can just sit back and relax to.

[Christie Hakala · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a very vintage feel about this book. It's a post WWII spy novel with an almost fantastical plot, but under 200 pages and a quick wrap-up make it an easy weekend read.

[Franziska Self Fisken · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really weird crime novel set in the 1950s

[Franziska Self Fisken · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really weird crime novel set in the 1950s book including a visit to Berlin whilst occupied by the 4 Allies.

[Steve Mepham · Rating 2 out of 5]

Odd mixture of a book.
There was a good detective/murder mystery in there mixed in with a certain level of psychobabble which I was less certain about.
Very much of its time, but none the worse for that, and quite short, but worth a few hours of your time.