By Alan Baxter

PS Publishing, out now

Jason Wilkes’ wife fails to return from her regular book club meeting – and unsurprisingly he imagines the worst. He’s not even close.

Alan Baxter’s taut novella takes an all too familiar situation – a missing persons case – and slowly but surely turns it into something far more arcane, taking the reader along with the narrator as what at the start you’d think was surely impossible starts to feel more and more probable. Pay close attention to the details as you go along (and as you start to feel the story increasingly grip you): Baxter plays very fair with the reader, providing essential clues.

There are moments of pure horror in this – not too many, so that their power isn’t diluted when they come – and a skilful use of language and form: paragraph length is put to good use, particularly in the last third of the tale. Perhaps inevitably with a restricted word count, the characterisation of some of the peripheral people isn’t as strong as it might be – I’d have liked to have known a bit more about some of the members of the book club – but the core personnel are well-drawn, and Baxter’s portrayal of Wilkes’ mental state through the ordeal is convincing.

Verdict: A tight novella that may make you want to be sure of being in the light by its end. 8/10

Paul Simpson