This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com: https://www.scifiandscary.com/the-tribe-review/

I first read ‘The Tribe’ in about 1990, and while I didn’t recall much about the book, I definitely remembered the stark warning on the back cover “WARNING! This is a taste of horror not for the squeamish…” That disclaimer is more of a tantalising tease than something actually meant to put people off, and it worked on 17 year old me. Rereading the book some 30 years later, I found that it’s not just hyperbole, this really is an unusually nasty book.
‘The Tribe’ tells the story (in fairly incoherent fashion, it must be said) of a series of murders plaguing the UK, the twist being that the murderer adds insult to injury by then cooking and eating their victim. A suitably stolid copper investigates, and it transpires there is a link between the killers, they were all part of the same anthropological research group which visited a remote cannibal tribe some years in the past. The mystery element plays a definite second fiddle to the horror though, which is no bad thing as the plotting is pretty confusing. The horror, on the other hand, is graphic, to the point and often shocking. What makes the violence even more disturbing is that it is often inflicted on loved ones. The excellent opening of the book features the police examining the viciously mutilated corpse of a young girl who has been killed and partially eaten by her father.
Where the book is much less successful is, well, everywhere else really. As mentioned above the plotting is scattershot, characters come and go and some that feel like they will be important just fade away. Towards the end the book adopts a dreamlike quality which is quite effective, although it’s still not clear to me whether it is deliberate or just the result of bad writing.
My view is that cheap horror of this type works best when the story works as a simple bridge between the scenes of violence. Shaun Hutson, whose novel ‘Slugs’ I’ll be reviewing next month is a master of this. Glenn Chandler, it turns out, isn’t. In ‘The Tribe’ that bridge is far too complicated and confusing, meaning that reading the story feels like a chore at times. That’s a shame, because when ‘The Tribe’ kicks into gear and gets nasty it’s very good indeed.

… (mere)

Markeret

whatmeworry | Apr 9, 2022 |

Savage Tide (Steve Madden Mysteries) af Glenn Chandler

This book set in Brighton started off well, Detective Steve Madden's son Jason who recently came out as gay has been murdered.
Madden cant really get involved so he does his own investigating.
He meets a whole host of dodgy characters.
It turns out Jason was working as a male escort one of his clients Dimarco who in a strange way Madden was beginning to like had Jason murdered.
This book got silly halfway through.

Markeret

Daftboy1 | Dec 12, 2016 |

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