- Hardcover: 368 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins; 140 edition (21 May 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0002253143
- ISBN-13: 978-0002253147
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 15.2 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 583,197 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
When an author is equally well known as a broadcaster, it can certainly help in promoting their books. But in the author of The Ancient, Muriel Gray's case, it could be said to be something of a liability. Gray is best known as a highly intelligent, energetic and cheerful TV presenter--and certainly the last person one might think capable of producing such an effectively chilling supernatural outing as The Ancient. But that's just what she's done.
This highly atmospheric tale combines the subtle, allusive prose style of such masters of the past as MR James with a more contemporary emphasis that suggests Clive Barker. In the grim, rubbish-strewn back streets of Lima, three boys are attempting to raise an ancient demon. Their incantations fail (so they think), but on the same night a drug dealer is killed over their impromptu altar. And anyone who has ever watched a Hammer film will know what effect the shedding of blood has on dormant monsters. Gray then relocates her narrative to the massive supertanker, Lysicrates, where the beleaguered second-in-command Matthew Cotton is intrigued by the arrival of a young American student. Soon, both are involved in the horror that came aboard with the hundreds of pounds of rubbish that the ship is carrying. Much carnage ensues before a decisive final confrontation.
Muriel Gray's particular achievement in The Ancient is to reinvigorate a genre suffering from chronic overload. Her supernatural menace may be nothing out of the ordinary, but she surrounds it with such a world of persuasively grim detail and (most importantly) well-rounded characters that the reader is comprehensively gripped.--Barry Forshaw
Review
From the reviews of The Trickster and Furnace:
'The Trickster is written with incredible vigour… thuggish, gory, sentimental, cosy. It grips'
Daily Mail
'Gray tells her tale with immense elan. A smashing debut that's gutsier than most authors could ever be' Time Out
'Pacy, energetic, violent entertainment whose flashes of intuition and glittery neurosis give it an idiosyncratic edge' The Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Be careful where you are when you pick up this book, because once you do, you won't be able to put it down. I lost a whole night's sleep to it and a morning's work. It was well worth it.
The hero is great, the heroine great, the villains nicely vengeful. The plot is as twisted and mesmerising as DNA. Every time I thought I might have got it sussed, the action soared in a different direction. I loved every terrifying second. Recommended!
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There aren't many books that keep you up through the night, just becuase you can't put it down, but this is one of them. I read this is an incredible ten hour straight sitting, a first for me. It was the combination of great characters, an unfolding tale that I couldn't wait to see what happened next, and a setting that really scared the pants off me. I haven't read all of Gray's books, but I'm going to now. You have to buy this, if only for the bit when the hero has to journey through the rubbish hold. Scarier than anything else I've read for years.
Format:Paperback
Once again Muriel Gray has written a page turner. I enjoyed this story immensely. The characters are believable and interesting from the begining to a great climax at the end. Highly recommended.
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