Gilray's Ghost

John Norman
Walker Books

A tense and gripping tale of horror and desire. In a pyramid-shaped tomb, in the forest, lie the last remains of Doctor Septimus Carr. An evil necromancer, he believed the bodily fluids of virgins could rejuvenate him; his grisly experiments claiming the life of a servant girl. Now, two centuries later, another girl is in mortal danger. Enter Gilray. Short and chubby, with a turn of speech as bizarre as his attire, Gilray has flown back in time to prevent the wickedness he fears is looming. But it's no simple task. For a start, who is the girl? Is it Linda Blake, Pauline Withers, Cassandra Ashe? Their teacher, flirtatious, poetry-loving Bob Wheatley, is the man whose help Gilray needs most, but he is preoccupied with passionate affairs of his own. At the same time, unknown to Gilray, the sinister Rosa and Robin Underleaf are planning to resurrect their "Master". The key, it seems, is the malign doctor's lost book of spells, if only Gilray can find and interpret it in time. The book explores a number of very different male-female relationships as it moves towards its chilling climax.

This is the third book by John Gordon that I've read over the last year or so.  The first was the one about the woman who was scared of a stick, the second was about some flying kids and a chalk giant and this one is about a time travelling bicycle repairman baker who traps people inside a walking stick.  Traditional plots are not where Mr. Gordon likes to travel.

So, how do I explain that plot?  You know what? I'm not going to try.  'Gilray's Ghost' is another intriguing oddity from the good Mr. Gordon but, much like the others, it just doesn't quite hit the mark for me. The daftness of the concept and the distasteful hints at necrophilia and paedophilia alongside his characteristic jumbled dialogue and unlikeable characters make it a bit of a gruelling and ultimately unfulfilling read.

The Giant Under The Snow

John Gordon
Puffin Books

Three children find an ornate Celtic buckle. To them it is treasure, a fantastic find. They have no idea that it has awakened a giant who has lain at rest for centuries. Little do they know that an evil warlord and his Leathermen have also awaited this moment, this chance to wield their deadly power. In a chilling tale full of menace and suspense the final battle between good and evil must be fought. Beautifully written, subtle, and evocative, this story transcends age, transporting the reader into an intensely atmospheric world where the imagination knows no bounds.

I love my collection of Puffin (and similar) books mostly because of the stories that tell of a very different type of Britain where history and legends seep through into the present or a Britain that many authors have happily pulled the trigger on in order to watch it burn but also because of the utterly beautiful cover art of which this is one of my favourites but it's the story we're here to talk about so...

Three kids on a school field trip become embroiled in a battle to thwart the return of an evil warlord after one of the trio - the unusually named Jonquil - discovers an ancient belt buckle in a clump of trees that looks suspiciously like a giant hand.  Along with her two friends - the trusting boyfriend Bill and the sceptical frenemy 'Arf' - she is enlisted by the protector of the place and imbued with magic powers that will allow them to keep the buckle safe and away from those working to bring back the warlord - the grey and abhorrent 'Leathermen' - and whose magic will once again allow the Giant to be raised from the soil where it has lain since the warlords previous defeat.

There's some nicely creepy elements here, the sinewy 'Leathermen' being the standout, but the book does get more than a little silly once the three take to the skies.  As with the previous book I'd read by Gordon - 'The House on the Brink' - you are left with the feeling that he desperately wanted the landscape to feature intrinsically in the story - even to the point of animating it - but just doesn't seem able to imbue it with any real sense of character which is a shame.

What we have though is a fun and frantic romp of a story filled with kids zooming around performing feats of magical daring-do and destroying monsters from the dark past which is what I was hoping for when I plucked it off the shelf.

The House on the Brink

John Gordon
Puffin Books

When a teenager follows a strange trail in the marsh, he finds himself haunted by the legend of King John's lost treasure and increasingly aware of mysterious undercurrents in the town where he lives.

Dating from 1970 this Fenland tale has a distinct M.R. James aura to it.  The story tells of a young man with the implausible name of Dick Dobbs who is deeply at odds with his surroundings.  He's disconnected from his family, painfully shy around strangers, hostile to those he dislikes but forgiving of his friends - which is just as well really.  he also has a profound connection with the water of the Fens; a gift later identified as 'divining'.

Into his life arrives a young girl, Helen, who shares his gift along with a neurotic widow, Mrs Knowles, who believes she is haunted by a sinister log.  Dick is drawn into her neurosis as he himself is trapped into the presence of the log and the trail it's taking on it's journey inland.

It's an odd and quite lovely story that maintains a delicious aura of sinister and mysterious goings on.  It's not without it's faults,  Dick is an unlikeable lead and he is a little too temperamental and changeable to empathise with.  The landscape, and in particular the water, is made much of in dialogue but in the narrative itself it's there merely as a conduit for bicycles which was a real shame.  Also, while we are on the subject of dialogue this became my biggest bugbear with the novel as conversations regularly deform and collapse in a confused muddle as Gordon tries far too hard to convey both the words and Dick's - and Helen's - ever changing, sudden and often perplexing mood swings.

At it's heart though 'The House on the Brink' is a rather lovely little tale of adolescence, emotion, madness, friendship, love and magic.  It has echoes of Jamesian tropes of obsession and horrors from the past best left alone and there are echoes of an Alan Garner like grounding in place and the stories that inhabit it which for me could have been more acutely woven into the narrative and would have raised the book to being something really rather special as opposed to being one that was eminently and entertainingly readable.