by Garth Marenghi

Coronet, out now

Horror author Nick Steen is having visions. Are they omens? Auguries? Portenderings of things to come? (Spoiler: yes, they are.)

Again, pilgrim, we only have ourselves to blame. We unwisely bought horror hack author Marenghi’s TerrorTome back in 2022, and then its follow-up Incarcerat in 2023. And now he’s back for Halloween with another trio of horrible novellas featuring his horror author alter-ego Nick Steen – demon-stalker – fighting supernatural forces in the town of Stalkford and beyond.

This trilogy of terror begins with Bonelord, with Steen trying to solve the mystery of a series of debonings. He’s soon drawn into Stalkford’s mafia underworld where he comes up against a moustachioed skeleton in a red cape. In The Black Steeple, Steen is on holiday with his soon-to-be ex-wife Jacinta and their pet-eating man-child son when they encounter a black steeple that appears and disappears at whim. And in SPECIMEN: The Spinewood Intrudering, Steen fears he has been subject to an alien abduction, as his furious haemorrhoids will testify. Is it a case of fire in the sky or fire in the back passage?

If you haven’t worked it out yet – and if so, where have you been? – Garth Marenghi is the comedic nom de plume of writer and director Matthew Holness, channeling the purple prose of British writers like Shaun Hutson, James Herbert, Guy N Smith and Clive Barker, with a dash of Stephen King, Dennis Wheatley and Whitley streibet thrown in. It’s all beautifully observed, and very very funny. Literary Easter eggs abound for those in the know, while readers with a less encyclopaedic knowledge of the genre will find the pompous and overwritten prose a comedic treat.

Verdict: In a market swamped by cosy crime, we can still count on horror hack Marenghi to put the awful in awfully good. I’d call this another hatchet job, but he’d only take it as a compliment. Read it and weep… with laughter. 10/10

Nick Joy