Why you could do worse than read London Revenant

Published by the wonderfully named Do Not Press, who appear to specialise in noir, splatter, horror, crime, thrillers, dark fantasy and books by "reformed career criminals", this is a sometimes rather nicely written, if oddly plotted, slice of gritty urban noirish subterranean conspiracy mystery/thriller with extra grit.

The author, Conrad Williams, has, I suspect, a background in horror and is as happy as a pig in gore when producing juicy chunks of London-A-Z-meets-Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre prose, where the streets and routes of the capital are described with as much fetishistic loving care as the slicing off of somebody's face.

Like all good Londoners (adopted or native) Adam Buckley, Williams's narrator, is obsessed by the underground - not just the tube, but the catacombs, ghost stations, bomb shelters and subterranean rivers that underscore the city, and also by the idea that there could be a whole civilisation - other world, even - in those miles and miles of tunnels. So far, you may well say, so Neverwhere. But what will make me part with my £2 (knocked down from £7.99 at the remainder bookshop in St James's Park station, fact fans) I hear you cry?

Well, it's quite pacy and involving - and it's always a weird little thrill to read books featuring tube crashes and undead tunnel-dwellers who push commuters in front of trains when you're sitting on the tube. And the hero has narcolepsy, which is reasonably interesting as a character trait, if a complete red herring. And there's a fair amount of sex, some semi-kinky. And if you're a Londoner, and reading about places and things you know (especially Underground stations) gives you a raging hard-on, you should definitely keep this one next to the toilet - Williams has most certainly done his research. Although not, you know, into the faceknife scene. I hope.

In fact, the only problems I have with London Revenant (apart from the fact that I'm not too orgasmic about the title) are that:
a) I'm about 15 pages away from the end and I can already tell that it will suck in comparison to the rest of the book (I will come back and recant if I'm wrong)*
b) The author, who usually has a rather fetching way with similes, allows this one to slip through on page 217: "sadness settled badly into her face like cheap moisturiser"
c) It's not by this, rather sexier Conrad Williams, and therefore I can't in all conscience post a picture of the tasty twin.

Oh all right then.



* Update: it did suck, but not as hard or in quite in the way I expected, although the monster did come back (check) and the hero didn't get back together with the ex-girlfriend we didn't really care about him getting back together with (check)
On the plus side, there was also a nice reincorporation and explanation of a bottle-shaped graffito the narrator keeps seeing all the way through.
On the minus side, there was a pretty left-field late revelation that three of his mates are imaginary. Which was fairly unnecessary, as a plot point, and didn't illuminate much. Seevn out of ten for effort, I reckon.
Would I read another one? Yeah, if it was two quid and wasn't quite so full of ick, shit (Williams is a big fan of filth of any sort) blood and imaginary friends. (I expect that'll be in the running for his next cover quote now ...)