The midnight cathedral filled with fire
The leather-clad monstrosity that kills with a spiked mace
The unholy pact between man and demon
Cynical London cop, Dora “Mac” McDougal, of the Metropolitan Police’s elite Organised Crime Command, has a strike-rate that is second-to-none, mainly because of her cavalier approach to rules and regulations. However, when Mac discovers the whereabouts of a cop-killer whom she has a personal beef with, she literally throws caution to the wind.
This animal in human form took out the only guy she ever cared about. And only one response is possible to that.
However, when Mac’s off-the-books revenge mission takes her north, she finds herself in a woe-begotten town, itself in the grip of supernatural evil. And uncovers a devilish plot to unleash torturous death on an epic scale.
Throughout her twenty-year war against the nation’s deadliest criminals, Mac could never have dreamed how many lower levels of darkness there still are, all just waiting to unleash their malevolent forces.
Sunday Times bestseller, Paul Finch, cranks up the terror to max in this all-new horror story of mass murder and urban diabolism.
Dark bleatings, my diabolical tribe. MWAHAHAHA! I’m here today to talk about a new novella from Paul Finch, which I was so excited about that despite receiving a free review eBook copy from PS Publishing, I bought in hardback at Paul’s book launch at FantasyCon. Because I just had to have it for my shelf.
This novella is about two cops that uncover a whole bunch of weirdness when one of their most reliable moles is murdered (in quite a scary fashion), and then they go off-book investigating a bizarre mystery. For those not in the know, the author used to be a police officer, wrote quite a lot on The Bill, and is known for his crime/horror works. His experience, both literary and lived, is very evident in the characters and the world of this story. Mac and Danny were fully fleshed-out characters and their professional and personal relationship was so easy to believe and care about.
I would say that this story starts off with a bang, then turns into a slightly slow burn (but it’s still fast-paced, being novella length), and then ends with a literary explosion. I love this mode of story-telling, providing the ending pays off (and for me, it did).
I suppose I do have criticisms, but I feel bad for mentioning them because they’re so reader-preference-based and not really anything to do with how the author wrote the book. Typically, I’m quite disinterested in crime as a genre, and police characters. I have no beef with either, it’s just so far out of what I know that I find it hard to relate. However, as mentioned, the characters are brilliantly painted and much more than their jobs (in fact, their jobs really only serve to give them the tools they need to unravel the mystery – we spend hardly any time in “police procedural” mode).
My only real disappointment is that there wasn’t more Satan. If you read my reviews, or know me at all, you’ll already know that I’m very obsessed with The Hooved One – he/she/it is my absolute favourite horror character, plot device, theme, etc. I can’t honestly say that the book let me down here because the book didn’t actually promise me Satan. Nor did the author, when he explained what this book was about during the book launch. Regardless, I was holding out hope that El Hornio would swoop in with his goaty smile and hoofy hooves anyway.
That said, I wasn’t let down by where the story went. It was very creepy and things got scary once we hit the third act. There’s this scene in an underground tunnel that will haunt my nightmares, I’m quite sure! I also really enjoyed the locations, and how well Finch depicted them. It was so easy to imagine every landscape, building, and room. He’s a great writer and this is a fun mix of horror and crime, and one of the more unique books I’ve had the pleasure to read this year.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you:
ALL THE DEVILS ARE HERE – AMAZON
Happy Goat Horror 
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