Gary McMahon

You know that squirming feeling in your stomach that you get when you are watching a movie and something bad is about to happen to a character you really care about? Well this book pretty much puts you through that for the whole way. This is one of the few books that I can say made me physically uncomfortable while at the same time not able to stop reading.

I found the plot line nightmarish and compelling, realistic yet hinting early of deeper connections, and I followed the slowly show more escalating malice to its nightmarish grand guignol conclusion.

I literally read this book at every available moment until it was done.

Absolutely fantastic. Once again Darkfuse provides a real winner and Gary McMahon just went on my author TBR list. show less

Ok Gary bring it on...and boy have you brought it on!..just look at this for a bit of teasing and snaring the unprotected reader into a nightmare world of his darkest dreams..."It was exactly the kind of place they needed to heal their wounds, a quiet, almost lazy backwater where everyone knew everyone else's business but nobody really bothered to interfere" So you are curious we have just met a lovely sweet scented family Robert, Sarah and some wonderful kids Connor and cute little Molly show more but we the reader are told they need to heal their wounds...you are snared...you want to know more!!...a lovely little appetizer Gary :) So the story of this middle class family unfolds and we learn a little more about the tormented Sarah "She was beautiful. He had never stopped thinking so, even as she lay in a north London hospital bed, her face swollen and bruised and those full lips shredded by her attackers cheap gold rings" This family is wounded but they are a unit, a fighting family unit and have taken the decision to move up country to Battle (nice play on that word) to a new home and a new life only to find their dreams shattered by an evil moulded and created from the mean streets of Hell...the Corbeaus...and just before battle commences probably the greatest and most memorable line in the book is spoken "He could almost hear their laughter as the skin of the world began to slowly unpeel"

No life is ideal and no family is perfect and in a world of good and evil "you try to retain a sense of purity within the sanctity of your family, to do your best to keep the tide of filth at bay" Robert Miller is a duplicitous character, he purports to be a man of honour, and yet he has a somewhat unenviable core, he loves to delve into the low seedy life and has an attraction for short affairs and sexual adventures with ladies of the night...are we all not a little like this? I purely pose the question and suggest nothing is what it seems...At the core of this story the Corbeaus are the lowest of the low, the scum of society we fear, the embodiment of our darkest dreams and they exist in every part and facet of our lives and we use our best endeavours to avoid and ignore their very existence..their world is "littered with detritus: fast-food cartons, beercans, condoms, wooden crates, pages torn from pornographic magazines, and, oddly, cut flowers. The stems of the flowers were dry and brittle, and the petals had been scattered across the grubby carpet in decorative arcs. The room smelled bad, like backed-up sewage pipes." The Corbeaus were Robert's very own demons and wanted him dead...unless he could take the fight to them. Welcome to the underbelly of the world! "We're the flipside," said a soft, low voice from behind and somewhere off to his left. "We're the underside. We're the nightside. And we're never. Going. Away".......
A fantastic achievement by Mr McMahon, a brilliant, thought provoking and highly intelligent story by a British author mastering and developing his trade. show less

The book opens with this quote: "One of the widespread beliefs is that hummingbirds, in some way, are messengers between worlds. As such they help shamans keep nature and spirit in balance"

Great. Hummingbirds. What's so scary about that you say? Plenty about that is scary, which is why you should read this book.

The Concrete Grove is described as what we here in the U.S. would call the projects. It's an urban area, filled with drug dealers, gang members and violence. At the center of these show more circularly laid out projects stands the needle.There are things living in the needle.Our 14 year old protagonist, Hailey, is drawn there, to them, for reasons unknown. It turns out that the needle is a sort of gateway, and what is coming through may or may not be pleasant, depending on the viewer. The Slitten are a force to be dealt with. Will 14 year old Hailey make it through? You will have to read this book to find out.

This book is populated with bleak, hopeless characters trapped in a bleak, grey environment. We have a woman, Hailey's mother, fighting to keep their financial heads above water. We have Tom, caring for his obese, paralyzed wife, (who got that way during a rendezvous with her lover.) At the same time we have Banjo, the drug addict and Monte Bright the local loan shark and instrument of mayhem. We won't even talk about Mr. Boater. These characters came alive to me, with all of their flaws and troubles. To me, that's an amazing piece of writing.

I was not aware at the time I bought this book that it was the beginning of a series. It looks as each book focuses on a different set of characters. I picked up the remaining two books in the series and I am looking forward to checking them out.

Recommended for fans of urban horror and for fans of science fiction type stories with heavy hints of horror! show less

At the heart of Gary McMahon's second outing to The Grove is the stinking underbelly of working class citizens etching out a living in the harsh and unforgiving landscape commonly known as The Concrete Grove. We meet again Simon Ridley, Brendan Cole and Marty Rivers who have never been able to escape an incident that occurred some 20 years ago and in this forced reunion they hope to do the business and rectify that which has gone before. What the author achieves here is creating a picture of show more the harsh realities and life style of those who have nothing and have no hope of ever having anything, and the premise that we are moulded by our childhood we can never escape from that and it makes us the person we have become today. Our 3 heroes have battled to achieve some meaning in their lives with limited success and as we learn they share a common bond of brutal upbringings....

"But it was too late for Marty to do anything but continue his assault. He kept punching, his fists aching, his fingers crunching, and could do nothing but wait until his terrible rage was spent. Anger drove him on, fueling his body and inuring it to the pain in his hands. He was once again the child whose father had beaten him for no other reason that to toughen him up, who grew into a teenager who burnt and lacerated his own body so that nobody would ever cause him pain or beat him in a stand-up fight."....and later "It's not so much that his father hits him, but more about the way the bastard treats Marty's mother. He knows that his father beats her at least once every two weeks - sometimes more often, if he's been drinking a lot. He rarely leaves marks, but there was that time last summer when they had to tell everyone that his mother had fallen down the stairs. She had two black eyes and her top lip was split and swollen. The skin around her jaw was red and tender to the touch."

"A hundred yards along Grove Crescent was the Arcade. The row of shops had always been here, ever since Simon could remember. The retail outlets renting the premises had changed, of course, but these were minor adaptions to the demands of the economy rather than any kind of improvement in consumer choice. The people round here did not want quality goods they wanted cheap and cheerful products that would do for the time being. These days, the shops were tenanted by a DVD rental outlet, a pizza and kebab takeaway service, Grove Grub (which was the only constant factor in the Arcade, having been there since Simon was a boy), a flower shop, a betting shop, a butchers-and-grocers, a small hardware store, a hairdressers with a solarium place in the flat above, and a grimy newsagent with faded advertisement for chocolate bars and comics in the chicken-wire-covered windows. More local kids in sports apparel hung around on the steps outside, mums stood smoking and chatting over prams, shady-looking men ducked in and out of the betting shop doorway, clutching or dropping onto the pavement creased slips of paper."

These are very powerful descriptive passages that add substance to "Silent Voices" and blend beautifully with the drabness and living hell of life in The Grove itself and the horror contained therein. The story leads us effortlessly through the present lives of Simon, Brendon, and Marty as they prepare to meet their nemesis for a final and frightening confrontation at the centre of The Grove.....The Needle..."The boys cross the road, walk along Grove Street and step into the Roundpath, the narrow walk-around circling the Needle. The large building hovers above them, as if cast adrift from its concrete foundations. It seems to totter and sway and as they approach the place they feel a sense of dislocation, as if they have ruptured something, broken through an invisible wall....."

I began to wonder could Gary McMahon maintain this frightening pace, this unputdownable read, until the end..... until the last page.....I need not have worried, in the hands of a professional author anything can happen and most surely will. All I will say is that the ending when it occurs is totally unexpected and clever in it's execution, leaving the way open nicely for the final installment of this wonderful trilogy. Highly Recommended. show less