Book review: The Dead by David Gatward

[Evil_Ed]

'The Dead' Review by Evil Ed

15 year old Lazarus Stone’s life is turned upside down when a skinless figure visits him at home to deliver him a message: The Dead Are Coming. What follows are a string of memorable characters (alcoholic, sword-wielding angel Arielle; Lazarus’s best mate and ‘Most-Haunted’ fan Craig) and set-pieces (the attack on Lazarus in a hospital room; the emergence of loathsome ‘Legion’) and a whole other load of cool ‘bits’ –- such as the three pointed ‘spike’ with the metal thorns on the handle which cut into your flesh, and the character ‘Red’ explaining the workings of The Dead and Hell by drawing pictures on a mirror in dripping blood…

Ah ha! THIS is what a Young Adult horror book should be like. There are no wimpy vampires to be found here. Good, unclean, gory fun. This is EXACTLY the sort of thing I would have loved as a kid. ‘The Dead’ wears its influences on its sleeve (Hellraiser, Derek Landy’s Skulduggery books) but forges a fresh, exciting mythology all of its own.

Moving at break-neck pace, the story is brought vividly to life by some spiky and infectious prose:

The figure’s body was bathed in firelight, the rocking chair horribly still. Its head was bald, the skin ripped away in strips and in places Lazarus, horrified and scared beyond anything he’d ever experienced in his life before, could see the milky glow of bone. Its ears were gone, nothing more than stumps that looked like melted candles. The face was a mass of tears and cuts, slicing across it this way and that, the nose severed in half. The mouth had no lips; just great, bloody wounds where they looked like they had been torn off. Its teeth reflected the fire.

Overshadowing the events is the sad spectre of Tobias Stone, Lazarus’s father, who has futilely been trying to fix time (his house is full of broken or half-mended clocks). During the course of the book, Lazarus uncovers more about the secret life of his father, and it is their relationship which glues the parts together, bringing substance to the novel, suffusing ‘The Dead’ with a lingering, haunting poignancy.

It is slight, but ‘The Dead’ is a wicked, rollicking ghost-train ride -- humorous, scary and always enjoyable. Oh, it’s got some really cool chapter headings too: Agonising Howl, Smell of Death, Torn to Shreds, Black Spit. The end sets us up very nicely indeed for the next instalment…’The Dark’. Written by a huge horror fan, ‘The Dead’ reads like the real deal to me. Highly recommended.

Read one of the chapters here: http://www.davidgatward.com/david-ga...s/the-dead.php