John L. Probert - The Catacombs of Fear

[Johnlprobert]

Hope you don't mind me mentioning this, but there's a review of Catacombs of Fear in the next issue of Black Static & it's a cracker!

[benedictjjones]

saw the review in BS - excellent stuff sir!

[dem]

He should be looking forward with some pride to taking up a position at Chilminster Cathedral, but the Reverend Patrick Clements is troubled. On first sight, the magnificent edifice appears to be carved out of jet black stone - exactly as it has appeared in his nightmares. It doesn't help that Bishop Straker isn't there to greet him - big funeral this morning, nasty business - so Patrick is left to see his own way round. At least this Ursula creature, the Cathedral Welcomer, seems relatively sane compared to that senile old doris in the souvenir shop, even if she does tend to speak in riddles. Or maybe it's just that his concentration is shot on account of the bizarre sculpture in the alcove beside him, looks like a depiction of a dinner party. Now what on earth is that doing in a Cathedral?

Neighbourhood Watch: A soiree at Mike and Davina Talbot house, just a small do with the Markhams and new neighbours Phil and Jayne Campbell. Much to Jayne's irritation, Davina is making test-the-bedsprings eyes at her husband, but then Davina is married to Phil whose conversation is restricted to one long drone about house values, investments and how big is your mortgage? 'What a f**king bore' think the newcomers, though of course, it wouldn't do to say as much.

This new housing complex is very exclusive, and that's the way Mike and his friends intend to keep it. Last thing you want is for any "unsavoury elements" to move in, might knock a few thousand grand off the value of ones desirable property. You know the type: beggars, druggies, the homeless. Now take those asylum seeker Johnnies. Would you credit it that some bright spark gave the go ahead to build a refugee centre right next to the supermarket where decent folk have to shop? Of course, it didn't last long. Nasty business, but how could the arsonists know some Slav types were inside at the time? Funny enough, it happened two years ago to the night. Did Phil and Jayne happen to notice anyone hanging around the car park on the way over? Not really. Just some black, shriveled figures lurking in the shadows. That will be members of Mike's Neighbourhood Watch doing their bit from the community, i expect .... What's that? Oh, they don't do patrols .....

Leaving the guilty to their satisfyingly grisly fate, we rejoin the Reverend as he wanders off to the Bishop's office. His eminence has yet to return, but Patrick finds a note addressed to himself. The contents only serve to worry him that maybe the job isn't his after all, that what he passed was merely a preliminary interview. Pausing only to admire four freshly dug graves from the window, Patrick decides his time would be best employed in getting to meet his potential parishioners. Looking over the pews, he spots a bizarre individual done up like Claude Raines in The Invisible Man sitting there all gloomy. Jesus, what's his story? Patrick approaches the bandaged bundle and asks if he can be of assistance? Fortunately for us, Mark Stone is in an unburdening mood .....

At First Sight: It begins in the supermarket 'five items or less' queue at closing time where fat single mum is holding everyone up. Mark Stone, young manager of the Winterlawns retirement home and romantically attached to Anna Perrywell, remembers he needs a passport photo for his ID card, slips into the kiosk but there's some kind of malfunction and the strip of four which eventually churn into the tray are of someone else, a strikingly beautiful young woman. Mark is at first annoyed at being done out of his money, but repeatedly finds himself withdrawing the snapshorts from his wallet for another crafty glimpse. Weird thing is, he didn't notice the hint of bruises on the girls' face at first but now they're becoming increasingly pronounced. And how could he miss the cuts? When Mark returns to the supermarket for a refund, the assistant recognises the young woman in the photo's as an ex-employee, Caroline Wilson, who was beaten to death in 2008. Nasty business. Her boyfriend, Shaun, was charged with murder although he maintained that she did it to herself - she was also in the habit of assaulting him. When Anna, who can't help but notice he's been distracted of late, catches Mark studying the photographs (Caroline's face is now obscenely bruised and battered), she takes him for a pervert. They argue. Mark, for the first time in his life, swings a punch at a woman and the effect on the photographs is even more dramatic than that on Anna. The bruises have vanished and Caroline is smiling.

Mark and Anna call an uneasy truce. His lovemaking takes a turn for the frenzied and borderline sadistic, but it's all in a good cause. "His acts of violence against Anna had improved Caroline's appearance, and it was obvious that he needed to keep doing them to keep her that way. What then, might he need to do to restore more than just her mere image?"

Mark's headlong descent into full-on mania is triggered when he receives a late evening call from work informing him that a troublesome geriatric has taken yet another fall. I won't spoil the ending but if i mention that it put me in mind of a certain sequence in the much-admired C. M. Eddy - Lovecraft collaboration The Loved Dead (minus the necrophilia, although Mark clearly lives in hope) you'll maybe gather that i was despicably entertained.

His grim tale at an end, Mark produces the film strip from his pocket and is about to show it to Reverend Patrick when Bishop Straker arrives to shepherd the new man away. From Straker's conversation, it's just as Patrick dreaded; the job will only be given him once the Bishop is satisfied that he's entirely suited to the position. Chilminster is throwing up so many distractions, it's hard for him to take everything in. Right now his attention is focused on a flyer pinned to the Cathedral notice board advertising local dance auditions. Straker's spotted it too. It should have been removed weeks ago, especially in view of what happened. Nasty business ....

The Markovski Quartet: The auditions are held by elderly couple, Dr. Vladimir Markovski and his beloved, wheelchair-bound wife, Irina, a prima ballerina in her day but sadly, that day was long in the past. Nick Morton, struggling to win the affection of his sixteen-year-old stepdaughter Caitlin, agrees to chaperon her for the night, although he's not entirely convinced that any world class dance troupe would go about recruiting from a church noticeboard. In that, Nick is entirely correct, and once he recovers from the effects of his drugged beverage to find himself tied securely to a chair, he learns the tragic and horrible history of this loving couple and the desperate measures Vladimir has taken to restore his mutilated wife to her former glory.

Even before i read the author's note at the back, i was thinking Christine 'Flavia Richardson' Campbell Thomson's Behind The Yellow Door and Charles Braunstone's Suitable Applicant from the Pan Horrors, although Vlad and Irina are as sympathetic a couple as ever thieved limb and organ from living man or woman and it's another belter of a story.

which brings us as close to the halfway mark as makes no difference, and must say, i am getting on famously with The Catacombs Of Fear so far. Those who've come to The Black Book Of Horror late and only really know of Mr. Probert's work via the fifth book would be well advised to investigate Catacombs ... as it is very much in the same ghastly spirit as De Vermis Infestis and Two For Dinner. More to follow ....

The author looking all nice, but is there any substance to Google Image's blood-freezing revelation?

[Johnlprobert]

Well it brings a tear to the old eyes to see such a write-up in the dear old Vault - thanks Mr D!

Seabury Quinn has suddenly taken on a marked resemblance to me hasn't he? And he seems to have been to the same weird graveyard in Siberia where I had my Vault picture taken

[dem]

Perhaps oddest of all is that i came to Catacombs ... straight from a mini-Seabury/ 'twenties-thirties Weird Tales fest and it just .... followed on all rather seamlessly. Anyway;

So, Bishop Straker continues the guided tour, this time leading an increasingly unnerved Reverend Clements down a flight of well worn steps to a cell which, on first glance appears empty. But then, a croaking whisper from the shadows relates the sad and grisly story of what he did for love ...

Mors Gratia Artis: TV Producer Mike Hayes is disenchanted with his lot. He's four-five months into a blossoming relationship with children's author Louise Davidson, financially he's getting by nicely off the back of mindless after-the-pub-shuts dross like After Hours and the pending Who's Got The Fattest Teenager?, but he wants to work in serious documentaries. The absolute nadir; he's now obliged to narrate a feature on the Jurgen Harkenschenkel exhibition at Bristol's Ingleton Gallery. Harkenschenkel is famous for his replicas of national monuments moulded in his own body fluids - you really wouldn't want to stand downwind of his Taj Mahal - but Mike's visit takes a turn for the life-changing when he catches sight of a strangely captivating landscape painting by obscure artist Phillip Reynolds. The cheery proprietor, Jeffrey Ingleton, confides that this is the gallery's "secret weapon", people can't help but return to see it over and over. Turns out Jeff has Reynolds' collected works in storage. They were presented to him by the artist, along with an incriminating notebook, shortly before his messy suicide during a family gathering at a remote Welsh cottage. Nasty business; many charred bodies. Sadly, he can't display these works of genius as they have a weird effect on the public who invariably try to steal them. Mike is delighted; at last, a fitting subject for some serious TV work, although Ingleton initially feigns reticence. Mike, enthused like never before, delves further into Reynolds' dark history, never realising Ingleton is using him as a pawn to resurrect his dead brother for a second reign of terror. Multiple murders, a Satanic pact and demonic possession all get a look in an incredibly convoluted plot which veers from black comedy to .... well, just pitch black and in part recalls the David Warner episode in From Beyond The Grave (via Chetwynd-Hayes' The Gatecrasher).

By now, Patrick has twigged that this isn't a normal Anglican Cathedral and his first guess is that he's already dead and enduring a Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors moment though that's not strictly the case. The Bishop promises to reveal all once he's shown him the organ loft, by which time he expects Patrick to have remembered everything about his previous stay at Chilminster ....

A Dance To The Music Of Insanity: Dolbydwr village in remote mid-Wales, and a family reunion at Stapleton Manor. The occasion is the funeral of Edric Stapleton, a martinet of a music teacher to son Matt, if not quite so tyrannical toward his wilder, flashy brother Luke. The general consensus has it that there was more than a touch of madness to Edric, but he was also a capable, self-willed man, whose second wife, Miriam, a good two decades his junior, dearly loved him. As things turn out, she was not alone in this. Edric was also the solitary patron of old man Morgagni's Mechanical Music Museum in the village and it's here he spent much of his time, obsessing over a music box reputed to play the 'forbidden notes.'

So, this funeral party, and the roll call of the damned includes; Matt and his sexy girlfriend, Juliette Winters; the constantly sparring, we're-only-here-for-the-inheritance, Luke and Stacey Stapelton; Eldric's widow Miriam; and the permanently pissed Reverend Norman Corby, who has to get back to the church in a dash on account of a break in. Some ungodly soul has filched the keyboard from the church organ. As the night progresses, so, one by one, the assembled are murdered in horrible fashion until only two are left standing. And that's when the full extent of Edric Stapelton's mania is revealed to his incredulous, not to say horrified, former pupil. Too many lazy comparisons already, i know, but if you can imagine a miniature of Michael Slade's gored-up Agatha Christie novel, Ripper, minus the police procedural content but plus plenty of the malign supernatural, you're getting warm.

Which leaves us with the finale which i won't spoil for those of you yet to read it, but a timely reminder that Catacombs Of Fear is actually a novel, and one that gets its business settled in under 170 pages. Ladies and gentlemen, there is still hope after all.

And before we bid farewell to the Catacombs ... for the time being, read Steve Jenson's informative interview with the author at Shadows & Illusions

[dem]

ha! the boys on the surveillance team have just reported back from darkest Chilminster, and seems it is ALL GO at Probert Towers just now. The following info has been posted in the News section of the Right Hon. Lord Probert's Site, but for those of us who are way too nonchalant to follow links, the gist is very much as follows.

Finally, it's been a while since the last update and I do have a few writing projects on the go at the moment, namely:

1 A novel for Atomic Fez featuring my supernatural detectives Massene Henderson & Samantha Jephcott which will pick up where my collection Against the Darkness left off.

2 The follow-up to The Catacombs of Fear for Gray Friar Press which will follow the same format as that book and The Faculty of Terror.

3 My first project as editor.

More on all three of these as I make progress on them!

Well! i am the world's least excitable person this side of the lugubrious Marcus "infectious lethargy" Odebiah in The Dead Travel Fast, but this is all very welcome news indeed. It is to be hoped that our resident style guru keeps us informed on how these three projects are coming along when he sees fit.