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Post by franklinmarsh on Oct 19, 2007 20:28:41 GMT
Owing to a crowded late train and a cock-up with my mobile library I ended up starting Graham Masterton's The Wells Of Hell yesterday (08/09/05). There's much to enjoy. Failed psychiatrist turned plumber Mason Perkins and his cat drive around in a 'Country Squire' (whatever that is - I wonder if GM drives one?).The Bodine family's water is a nasty urine-yellow and some say it smells fishy. Mason takes a sample and delivers it Dan Kirk (the Sherlock Holmes of H2O) in the worst-run laboratory in America - if not the world. Nobody seems to mind Mason lighting up his cigarillos in there, there's a wild (not lab escaped) mouse nicking people's lunches and top scientist Dan thinks nothing of sloping off to the local hotel for a few beers (Schaefer) with Mason before returning to work. GM has obviously contacted the Agency For Sexy Lab Assistants - Rheta Warren - who Mason would like to get it on with. There are some sinister micro- organisms discovered in the water. Returning from boozing at the Hotel (the plumber hitting the Jack Daniels as well as the beer - and he's driving!)Mason catches the lab mouse and he and Dan are horrified to see it's growing a scaly insect-like skin over its nether regions. They notice the water sample is reduced. Could the mouse have been drinking too? Despite the fact they've been on the sauce and Dan is in the middle of a swine fever investigation they decide to go and check on the Bodines as they're not answering the phone. The house is in darkness. The wind is whistling in the trees. It's dark.......
Here's a sample - 'Carter rested his hands on his hips and sighed. "If you don't beat everything. You think you can go in there, right into those goddamned brambles and holly bushes, and chew the fat with some homicidal lobster that just tore five people to shreds in one morning?" ' There's been a mid-book lull but things are beginning to take off again. Mentions of McDonalds and Volkswagen. After a monster encounter Dan attempts to revive Mason by whipping out a hip flask and apologising 'It's only Old Grandad'. Mr Masterton must have had a well-stocked bar after this one.
On reflection, very derivative of Quatermass & The Pit in parts. The 'monster' is Satan,only not quite. You have to applaud Mason's dedication to booze. Before the end the sheriff gives him a swig of confiscated moonshine, and after the final confrontation an ambulance man passes him a miniature bottle of Yukon Jack.
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Post by swampslimer on Apr 2, 2008 11:21:47 GMT
Read it a month or so ago - not really one of Masterton's best but a decent book with an underlying Lovecraftian atmosphere.
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