Wednesday 16 March 2016

Hospital visit from Hell....

I was asked the other day to review Dead Shift by John Llewellyen Probert, available to buy on Amazon at the end of the week, and was only too pleased to offer my thoughts.

Dead Shift was an awesome book and I cannot recommend it enough!




Richard and his colleagues thought it was just going to be another regular, boring shift at the hospital when they got up this morning.
They were wrong.
When a homeless man is brought in with self-inflicted injuries, frantically clasping a strange book he refuses to let go of, the hospital staff thinks he is probably just harmless.
But Arthur Lipscomb is not himself.
The book he's holding is the source of great power, a power that has taken hold of Arthur Lipscomb and wants him to finish what he's started.
Before anyone can stop him, Arthur opens up a gateway into another world, another reality, and that's when all hell breaks loose!

This is a highly engaging and entertaining novella that starts at a fast pace and doesn't let up for a single second, right up and until it's shocking, brutal climax. The action and the pace at which this book moves is relentless and though this is a fairly short, light read, don't let that put you off because this author has a highly terrific and engaging style that sucks you in right from the start.

Reading this put me very much in mind of an early Brian Lumley. 
There is lots of similar imagery here as employed by Lumley in many of his own books, and the subtle nods to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos are obvious throughout. 
I really, really enjoyed this and could not recommend it enough.
I simply love the way Llewellyen Probert utilises and manipulates all manner of people's fears about hospitals to his own agenda and there were plenty of moments here that even made this horror writer want to squirm and itch and scratch...

I must confess, I have never stumbled across this particular author before, but one thing is for certain - I will be keeping a keen eye out for his work in the future.

If you want something light, quick and easy to read that will still give you nightmares, I recommend this.

I probably wouldn't be reading this though either before or during a hospital visit though....

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You should read his other books for sure. They're really good (and only a few involve a hospital!).

sparkymarky1973 said...

Thanks Kat - after this, I will