Genre: Horror
Publisher: Sinister Grin Press
Publication Date: 19th Feb 2016
Pages: 328
MY REVIEW:
A copy of Black Goat Motorcycle Club, by Jason Murphy, was sent to Confessions of a Reviewer by the publishers, Sinister Grin Press, in exchange for an honest review. This is said review.
I do enjoy getting ARCS from Sinister Grin Press. You never know quite what you are going to get because they do produce a very wide range of stuff. I couldn’t wait to get my teeth into this one because of a couple of reasons. I loved the cover. It’s a horror. It has motorbikes in it. And of course it’s from Sinister Grin. Never heard of Jason Murphy before and that is probably because it looks like this is his first book.
How does it stand up as a debut then?
Hank is a doctor. He doesn’t class himself as a top notch doctor. He works weekends in a godforsaken hospital in the middle of nowhere in Arizona. He hates it. He normally does his shift very drunk.
Whitey has woken up with a hangover. He remembers shooting a coyote in a trap outside his trailer and goes to get it. It wasn’t a coyote.
The weekend dayshift takes a turn for the worst for Hank when Whitey turns up with his find, a mysterious, fake FBI agent turns up with an equally mysterious crate and the Black Goat Motorcycle Club roll into town.
It’s two for one time.
Review One: Buy it. No excuses. Just buy it.
Review Two: My my. As debut books go, you ain’t gonna get much better than this. This was just absolutely superb. An early contender for book of the year!
Characters in this one are a bunch of people that are so well written you will feel like they are family. Every single one of them are so likeable (even the baddies), believable and just perfectly suited to this story. I know that sounds a bit stupid but if they had been in any other story they may not have fit so well.This story was just written for them. That sounds weird again doesn’t it?
Hank is a disgruntled, lazy, hard drinking doctor. He would admit that to you himself. He doesn’t have a lot of faith in himself or his abilities. Simone is the nurse that believes the hospital is hers and no one can do anything without running it by her. The stereotypical matron of old. Nathan is a young male nurse that loves his job and his family, he is working to make things better for them.
Bullet is an EMT that is also rumoured to work
in a strip club. Athletic, beautiful and mysterious. Every man’s dream. Whitey
is an old man that has seen better days. He’s not as stupid as he lets on
though. Put all of these together and you have the perfect make up of people
inside the hospital that are the good side.
Castle is an agent. For whom nobody knows. He has messed
up though. No one else knows the danger they are in because of this, apart from
him and he won’t tell anyone. Gideon is the leader of the Black Goats. He is
also mysterious and full of dark secrets and evil to the core. Varney is
mystery personified. I can’t tell you any more about him. Put these together
and you have the bad side.
The plot? A horror story of a group of people trapped in
a hospital surrounded by evil on all sides, outside. They just don’t know that
the evil is inside with them as well. It’s a battle for survival. A battle of
good versus evil. A battle of evil versus evil. That is all your getting. It’s
still more than I had before I picked it up, but I refuse to tell you anymore
because you need to discover it for yourself.
So what’s it like then? Superb. Just bloody brilliant.
The end!
That is really what I feel like writing. This book is
just wonderful. It has more horror elements in it than some anthologies I’ve
read. It mixes them all together and gives it a shake and produces something at
the end that is just fantastic.
You ever see those big inflatable balls that you can
climb inside and roll about in? After closing this book, I felt like I had
climbed inside one of those and been pushed down the side of Everest!
We have a group of people trapped in a building
reminiscent of Dawn of the Dead or Assault on Precinct 13. We have scenes
reminiscent of that big battle in Cobra
where there is just a nonstop assault on the building. We have heart-warming
moments where you totally fall for the people trapped and hope and pray that
they get out alive. We moments of pure anger and evil from the people outside
the building where you both loath them and love them at the same time. They are
fantastically evil and brutal in a way you just can’t help but admire.
The writing in this is brilliant. Smooth when it needs to
be and brutal when it needs to be. This reads like it has been written by
someone with a dozen books under their belt. The mixture of different types of
horror works brilliantly. From the slasher, to the monster to the pure
unadulterated psychological tension and horror inside the minds of people who
have no idea what they are going to do to survive. Perfectly paced throughout,
this is expertly put on paper to keep you totally glued to it and totally glued
to your seat.
One other thing that got me about this is the fact that
Mr Murphy is not afraid to take your main characters and make absolute minced
meat out of them. I think he got his character writing training from the George
RR Martin book of “Kill your characters when you want and not when people
expect”.
And breathe……
To summarise: a horror story that will scare you and keep
you on your toes and make your jaw hit the ground and just delight you.
Highest possible recommendation.
General rating:
★★★★★ any less is a joke!
Horror rating:
★★★★★ and again!
If you would like to help support Confessions of a Reviewer,
then please consider using the links below to buy Black Goat Motorcycle Club or any other books from Jason. This not
only supports me but also lets me know how many people actually like to buy
books after reading my reviews.
Thanks.
Book Synopsis:
In the heart of the Arizona desert sits Tribes Memorial
Hospital.
Quiet. Isolated. The perfect place for the Black Goat
Motorcycle Club to settle an old score.
As the hospital staff struggles to survive the night,
they come to understand that the real threat, an evil both ancient and hungry,
may be trapped inside with them.
Jason Murphy is new
to the prose fiction world with his first publication, Homunculus, in Sinister
Grin's anthology, Fresh Meat.
He
can also be seen as the co-host of Hacking the System on the National
Geographic channel.
And
for more about Jason, visit his site or find him on social media:
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Goodreads – Amazon Page –
Sinister Grin
No comments:
Post a Comment