Curfew [Kindle Edition]

Every respectable author involved in writing supernatural thrillers should have a `Haunted Village story' in their armoury and this is Phil Rickman's. The author's astute knowledge of the more macabre aspects of British folklore serves him well once again as he constructs an intricate plot labyrinth to place his characters.

The basic storyline involves the small town of Crybbe, built on a nexus of converging Ley lines whose ancient protections are at long last failing just as Max Goff, an eccentric record company zillionaire launches his plans to turn the town into a New Age Mecca. As the village is besieged with well meaning alternative healers and their paraphernalia of holistic magic - dark forces come into play in the guise of Black Michael as well as a plethora of dead souls wandering around and causing havoc to the local census records. It sounds like a super hero is required to restore order. Step forward - J.M Powys (Ley Line Man) - one of my all time favourite Rickman characters - who in time honoured fashion battles supreme evil and gets the girl (along with a three legged dog).

For those few mealy-mouthed critics who point out that Crybbe lacks on originality could I in turn point out that there hasn't been an original horror story written since The Bible. Let's face it, any book that has demons, Satan, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, dead men walking, plus numerous outbreaks of plagues and pestilence just has to be a horror story. The only difference here is that the `Book of Rickman' actually makes you feel fulfilled and happy as a little sunbeam at the end. So Amen to all that.

If I owned a cap I would certainly doff it to Phil Rickman for this book.

I read this in paperback entitled Crybbe. One of Rickman's earlier novels, it sets the reader up for his later works and introduces a few characters that appear in the Merrily books.

A decent size read, nice to have it in ebook form.

Could this be the only novel acclaimed by both Stephen King and Joanna Trollope? All the energy of early King but with a very British setting. Where King, in Salem's Lot, imports his horrors, Rickman finds them on the ground, uncovering authentic but little-known Welsh Border folklore in this shuddery tale of a small town where the curfew bell keeps the lid on an old evil. Yes, I know Crybbe isn't Hay-on-Wye, but I know also, as I walk through the deserted streets late at night, that it isn't far away...