David Anne - The Folly

[ripper]

David Anne - The Folly (W. H. Allen, 1978: Pan, 1980)

The Folly by David Anne. Published by Corgi in 1980. I bought this book when it was first published and in a moment of madness gave it away to a charity shop with a pile of other books about 15 years ago.

Basically, it's a Rats clone, with rabbits taking the place of Herbert's rodents. If I remember correctly, myxomatosis comes into the plot somewhere and the rabbits end up murdering people. These are not the giant bunnies of Night of the Lepus, but ordinary-sized ones. There are quite a few deaths including the obligatory courting couple. Someone also gets infected with myxomatosis and is rather gorily described. It was pretty standard fare for a book of its type. Quick and easy to read, but it didn't really stand out enough from the endless other Rats clones, hence my rather vague recollections of the plot :-).

[dem bones]

with you at last, rip!

David Anne - The Folly (Corgi, 1980: Originally W. H. Allen, 1978)

Blurb:
FOR CENTURIES MAN HAS MANIPULATED THE FORCES OF NATURE WITH LITTLE THOUGHT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT OR FOR THE SUFFERING OF THE ANIMALS SO RUTHLESSLY EXPLOITED.. BUT SOMETIMES NATURE CAN TAKE HER OWN REVENGE!

The peace of the quiet English country village of Frickley, situated a few miles from the Government Research Station of Porton Down is abruptly shattered by a
series of inexplicable, violent deaths. The victims are so badly mutilated as to be unidentifiable.

Among the dead are the parents of Guy Corling. Propelled by both personal and professional feelings, Guy starts to uncover the grotesque story of one man's folly — leading him on a trail of death and terror until the final, hair-raising denouement.

"FOR LOVERS OF THE REALLY GRUESOME ... BLOOD-CURDLINGLY LUSCIOUS." Yorkshire Post

"I WARMLY RECOMMEND IT TO HAMMER FILMS AS A BLOCKBUSTER." - Hampstead & Highgate Express

An interesting snippet before we even get started.

"Author's acknowledgement.

I am indebted to Alan R. Radnor for his help with this story, not least for his invaluable contribution on the generic background."

Would that be the same 'Alan Radnor' who wrote several Hamlyn & Arrow nasties under the penname 'Richard Lewis'?

The Folly, a solid tower 100 feet hight, built by Sir Norman 'Norman the mad' Hattrell, great-grandfather of Frickley Manor's current landlord, Sir Mark. The legend of 'Norman the mad,' a suspected black magician and wife-murderer who drank himself to death, still hangs over the village like a bad smell, and from the 1950's onward many swear to have seen a 'yellow figure' hovering over the long grass surrounding his tower.

It begins one cold night during the Spring. Pat Donnolly, recently bereaved of wife Doris, is walking home from The Goat when he's set upon and eaten alive by ... he can't actually see them clearly in the dark but they are brown, buck-toothed and there are hundreds of the vicious bastards.

Cut to Rosemary Cottage, home to wheelchair-bound former Brigadier Hubert Corling OBE, devoted wife Jane and Wiggy the playful cairn terrier. The night creatures (Jane's first impression is mice, but a rat-rabbit hybrid may be nearer the mark) make very short work of chewing their way through the door to feast on those inside.

Tuesday morning begins badly for gamekeeper Victor Henthorne. Sir Mark Hattrell having bawled him out over Pat Donnolly's timekeeping, Vic pays the absentee a home visit only to good as step in his grisly corpse. He arrives just in time to watch a pair of crows dine on old Pat's eyes. Sir Mark takes the appalling death of his employee in his stride - "The man was practically an alcoholic" - and puts it down to natural causes. From this we suspect Hattrell is a chip off the old, 'Norman the mad' block. He is a close associate of scientist James Webber, a big noise at the Porton Down research complex, and the two of them have been spotted playing clandestine visits to the Folly. Such is Sir Mark's hatred of rabbits that it is rumoured he deliberately introduced myxomatosis to the country in 1954.

"What have you got lined up, Guy? Anything exciting, juicy which shows up the moral corruption of everyone in this country except our readers?" - Jack Fraser, editor of popular daily, The Planet.

Fleet Street, April Fool's Day. Guy Corling, 35, the Planet's chief crime reporter, is on the trail of 'the Autograph Rapist' (who insists upon the victim signing his book) when he learns of his parents' murder by 'persons unknown'. He takes the next train South to Andover where veteran local reporter Jock McGovern reluctantly breaks the news that his mum and dad were devoured.

"We could go for a spin on the bike and then go to the flicks. It's Elvis in Blue Hawaii tonight." Audrey Barrett, aspiring Playboy Club bunny, doesn't fancy the Pub. Her boyfriend, Bob Norris, 20, has just bought a shiny new Kawasaki 250, and is keen to show it off to his mates, but - this is make or break night. Bob's been going steady with Audrey for four months, and still only the occasional heavy petting session to show for it. A man has needs! After a pleasant evening, Audrey, a little worse for drink, agrees they should ride over to Frickley woods before he drops her home. Bob's ecstatic. This is it! This is it! Didn't he just know the bike would bring him luck?

[dem bones]

Whoever David Anne may or may not be, he was certainly familiar with the rules of the game.

"But why make it a meat-eater, when rabbits are vegetarian?"

"For God's sake, man!" Webber said angrily, jumping too his feet and pacing around. "You still haven't got the point, have you? I didn't make the rat-rabbits do anything! You've been reading too much science fiction!" he spat, throwing his head back in disgust. (my italics)

Guy hates former friend Sir Mark because, off the back of a particularly dirty trick, the aristocrat stole the love of his life and reduced her to a pathetic junkie dead long before her time. Out of sheer malice, Guy seduced Hattrell's second wife, Lady Anne, only to realise that he genuine loves her and the feeling is mutual. The pair have been lovers ever since though, by tacit agreement, Anne still plays the part of devoted wife to prevent a scandal.

Paul Measures, travelling salesman, gets drunk celebrating a big money deal and crashes his car in the woods. The rabbits join him for a nightcap. A vomiting fit saves his life. For my money, what happens soon afterwards when he emerges from the trees and onto the road is the novel's most inspired moment.

Investigating the biker's death, a local PC pays a visit to the Folly. Only bits of him are ever seen again.

Sir Mark Hattrell has gone to ground, having first sacked Madge Jensen, his housekeeper and bit-on-the-side of several years standing. The last reported sighting has him a bloated, blotchy-skinned, hobbling wreck, swearing at the sky like some demented dosser. Madge takes redundancy badly and goes at Lady Anne with an axe. Fortunately, Guy is on hand to punch her in the face. It is all getting out of hand. In the absence of Hattrell, Guy makes it his business to investigate the shady Porton Down scientist, James Webber. The press files reveal that Webber's sphere of expertise is "animal virus work .... notably the myxoma virus in rabbits." It is by now an open secret among the gamekeeper and his colleagues that the recent murders were perpetrated by mutant rabbits with a taste for human meat. What are the Government boffins getting up to?

Although seemingly keen to make amends, Webber is a driven man with a mad obsession to see his research through, and to this end, kidnaps Anne and cages her next door to his monster rodents. He warns Guy that, should he interfere, Anne is rat-rabbit food. There is nothing for it but to storm the Bluebeard's Castle/ Frankenstein's laboratory that is The Folly!

Perhaps not so much a The Rats clone as Spiders with floppy ears. The closing chapter is even reminiscent of Seabury Quinn in House Of Horror/House Where Time Stood Still mood.

[markewest]

I have these and keep meaning to push it to the top of the TBR pile, now I definitely want to!

[erebus]

BRIGHT EYES...BURNING LIKE FIRE . Picked this up recently. Looking forward to having a bash at it. The cover is dreadfully lame and uninspiring isn't it ?

[ripper]

I have been dreadfully tardy in not responding to Dem's excellent plot summary, but better late than never I hope :-).

Some of Dem's summary rings bells and I think I had a fairly good time with the book back in 1980. The problem is that at the time these Rats clones were coming out seemingly every week and few had anything to make them stand out from the crowd. Having said that, it's not a bad clone, just nothing to recommend it above anything else in the genre of creature attacks so popular at the time.

[markewest]

I read it last year (my cover doesn't even have the rabbit on, sadly enough - I think I have the 1980 Corgi version) and wrote this review at the time:

Foul things are afoot in the quaint English village of Frickley, situated a few miles away from the Governments research facility at Porton Down. When fast rising crime reporter Guy Corling hears that his parents have just died there - mutilated badly enough the police Inspector tells him they were carried away in a plastic bag - he decides to snoop around. Teaming up with Victor Henthorne, gamekeeper for Lord of the Manor Sir Mark Hattrell (once a friend of Guy’s until woman-trouble intervened, though Guy is now knocking off Sir Mark’s wife), he delves deeper into the mystery of The Folly, the lack of rabbits in the area and the savage attacks which leave only mutilated remains. Originally published in 1978 (and reprinted in 1980 - “The classic horror story - back in print” proclaims a sticker on the cover), this is thoroughly exploitative and follows the template set by James Herbert’s “The Rats” and others of that ilk, with nature taking her revenge on mad scientists and their sponsors. With some gruesome moments, a nice tie-in of the real-life myxomatosis outbreak in the 1950’s and some class warfare, this unfortunately suffers with pedestrian writing (some key scenes are casually brushed over) and lack of characterisation for the second leads (Anne, Sir Mark’s wife, is particularly poorly served) though it does have cool monsters. This is my kind of book - a cheesy horror novel from the 70s (even if it’s designed to cash-in on a trend) - and although it should have tried harder to hold together, it was still an enjoyable and quick read. I liked it a lot, your mileage may vary dependent entirely on how you feel about this kind of exploitative/cheesy horror goodness.

[ripper]

Hi Mark. I'm glad you had a good time with 'The Folly.' The rabbit attacks were pretty good, with the creatures going into a frenzy at the smell of blood. Also, the descriptions of people suffering from the disease were rather disgusting--in a good way, I mean! lol The trouble is that the book was, I thought, just too generic of the 'nature attacks' genre to stand out at all. Only the attacks and disease descriptions have stayed in my memory after all this time.