A blood debt gone wrong. A demon unleashed.
Thirty-four years ago, a supernatural horror was summoned into the world, leaving nothing but mutilated corpses in its wake…
Until the day the trail went cold.
Now it’s back, and the fate of a young Traveller girl and her mother hang in the balance.
Their only hope of survival rests in the hands of cynical ex-detective Charlie Haynes. But what chance does a pensioner have against a demon? And if he can’t save them from the clutches of this ancient evil, what will become of mankind?
The Laughing Policeman is the first book in the Brimstone Chorus supernatural horror series. If you like gritty, fast-paced suspense, dry humour and dark forces, then you won’t be able to put down Elizabeth J. Brown’s addictive and ultraviolent debut.
A warning: The Laughing Policeman contains scenes of violence and strong language, that some readers may find distressing.
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! So, in short, this book is good! In the beginning, something absolutely horrible happens to poor Stephen (a police detective). It’s the kind of thing that could ruin you forever, unless you find a purpose, and Stephen finds a purpose. But…. at what cost?
Prior to this incident, we know from the prologue that a family is burdened with protecting a particular cursed object, because carelessness with it will unleash a horrid demon-like entity that will immediately seek revenge and its ultimate freedom.
The two worlds merge, and thus the story begins.
This story kind of has it all if you’re the kind of horror reader that enjoys supernatural blood feuds, duality themes, revenge plots, and that good old battle between good and evil. The author clearly knew where the story was heading and did a great job of sewing the many seeds required to pull off the ending.
One of the ballsiest decisions, I thought, was that midway through, we suddenly have brand new characters thrust at us. We were already so firmly in the know about the current cast that initially, I found this switch up quite jarring. Amongst my bookish pet peeves, I really REALLY hate time jumps. There are exceptions, obviously, but generally speaking, I find they tend to disengage me from the story. However, the author really pulls it off here. First, we hit a time jump, then the new characters. For a couple of minutes, I was actually mad. I uttered the words, “is she f***ing kidding…. new characters?!” But soon after that I was eating those words, because once again, the characters were so quickly and effectively formed that I cared about them in record time.
At one point, there are a lot of moving parts in this story, but they’re tied together so nicely towards the end and I found the resolution very satisfying.
I’d recommend this to horror fans that enjoy a demonic twist! If you’d like to check out the book or the author, there are some links below for you:
Happy Goat Horror 
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