The Damned (The Dead) [Paperback]

This is the 3rd and final instalment of the Dead trilogy and it is the best by far.

The characters are in depth and likeable. I think Craig has a great sense of humour and I dont know what Lazurus would do without him as his best friend.

Red and Arelle are such interesting characters that I find myself wondering how things started & how they all met. Would love a book on them. :)

A very fast paced book with great descriptive writing throughout, I felt like I was living each scene.

The book was brought to a satisfying end, with the door left open to maybe continue the adventures.

spine tingling, gruesome, tons of gore what more could a YA horror fan ask for! :)

A number of my friends think it is more than a little odd that I choose to read a great deal of books written for children and teenagers. Every time we have a conversation along these lines I implore them to have a try themselves as I know they will be very surprised at the quality of writing and story that is prevalent in the world of children's and YA fiction these days. Simply put, I firmly believe that a good story is a good story, whatever the age group it is written for.

David Gatward's The Dead series is a perfect example of this within the horror genre and it will have a position of great prominence on the horror table on the staff reading day. He writes books that can be enjoyed equally by 12 year olds discovering horror for the first time, and forty year old horror fan-boys who have grown up loving the likes of HP Lovecraft and Clive Barker, and horror films such as Hellraiser and the giallo movies that came out of Italy during the 1970s, all this very much evidenced by the rave reviews he has received by many highly respected horror publications. The Dead was superb, The Dark even better, and the third instalment, The Damned, has raised the bar of children's blood-soaked horror to an even greater height. It is nothing short of brilliant from beginning to end, and by far my favourite of the trilogy.

The end of The Dark was pretty brutal and left me as a reader craving to find out how on earth Lazarus would save his father and prevent the opening of a permanent portal between our world and that of the Dead. I say "how on earth", but maybe it would be more accurate to add "and hell" to that, as this time Lazarus must travel even further beyond the world as we know it on his mission to save us all. As I said, I loved every moment of The Damned, but for me the story became more than special once Lazarus and crossed over to the other side and started to fight his way through to the realm of The Fallen. David's story moves at a frantic pace, leaving his characters barely enough time to breathe, and his readers feeling pretty much the same, and yet his fast paced style does not come at the cost of poor descriptions of locations or the various entities that we encounter along the way that we sometimes see from other less accomplished writing. Despite the fast pace, every scene is brought alive by the quality of the author's descriptive writing and reading this trilogy has at times felt like a cinematic experience. When describing the lands of the Dead and his version of hell his talent really shines.

I know David Gatward was a little down towards the end of 2010. Despite the amazing reviews his books were garnering, he had been asked by his publisher to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion at the end of the third book, instead of giving him the go-ahead to write more in the series (and if you go back to the interview he did for The Book Zone last year you will see that he already had books 4 - 6 plotted out, with a desire to write 18!). This of course meant quite a hefty rewrite of The Damned, but again, due to this man's skill, this is not at all evident in the final product. The three books now read as a brilliant trilogy, and with the action of each book continuing straight after the climax of the previous book, they would even work very well as a single volume story. And even better news for Gatward fans.... although The Damned is brought to a natural and very satisfying conclusion, David has left the door wide open for a possible continuation of the adventures and trials of the Keeper of the Dead, Lazarus Stone.

If you like your horror to be fast paced and bloody then whatever your age please give this trilogy a try - I am sure you will not regret it.

Oh how i love a good YA horror! and this is one of the best!

I've now read the whole series, The dead, the dark and the damned, and wow was i impressed!

In this book, we following Lazarus and co. as Hell finally breaks through to earth, and only Lazarus can stop it.

this whole book was full of suspense, it kept me awake at night reading it. The descriptions of the Dead are just as creepy in this book as they ever were, and the story was just fantastic! it's a hard book to review without giving away key plot points that would ruin the book, so I will just say:

amazing book, amazing series, and well worth your time to read it! I loved it and will be reading again and again!