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Post by ripper on Mar 28, 2014 20:44:26 GMT
Shaun Hutson--Deadhead (Little, Brown and Company, 1993)
This was written at a time when Hutson was beginning to move away from horror to violent thrillers. Ex-policeman Nick Ryan runs a successful private investigations business. When his ex-wife's new husband's shady dealings with pornographic snuff films result in Kelly, Ryan's daughter, being kidnapped, Ryan must find her, while all the time being steadily weakened by a terminal illness.
I first read this one around 12 years ago and thought it was not bad at all. Re-reading it, I came to basically the same conclusion. For a Shaun Hutson book, it is remarkably restrained for most of it's length; there is a brutal fight in a snooker club and Ryan deals out some savage treatment to a pimp who has been supplying girls to the pornographers who have kidnapped Kelly, but the main action is saved for the climax, a truly bloodsoaked classic of Hutson's. As is usually the case with a Hutson book, most of the characters come to a violent end, most being despatched at the climax. There are a few times when coincidences stretch credibility to the very limit and I was puzzled why Ryan didn't seek medical attention when he first became ill--he only finds out about his terminal illness after being involved in a car accident when he blacks out at the wheel due to pain. Despite the fact that the book was only published in 1993, it has dated quite badly due to technological advances over the last two decades. Of course, that is no fault of the author's, but when the pornographers use VHS tapes instead of digital media, and there is talk of Ryan having a car-phone instead of a mobile phone, it does remind you just how far we have come since then. The main villans are truly vile and it is satisfying when they meet with Ryan's wrath. One or two plot threads remain unresolved at the end and the story takes a while to really get going. Overall, though, it is not bad at all, just don't expect action from beginning to end.
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Post by erebus on Mar 29, 2014 16:43:33 GMT
I agree this for me was really the last of the Hutson style books he is known for. The stuff he did later like White Ghost, Lucys Child and Stolen Angels are not just more subtle, but also lesser books. This, and more so Heathen the one before it are quite decent novels. The dip started after this .
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Post by ripper on Mar 29, 2014 19:34:58 GMT
I quite liked Heathen and White Ghost (I think Sean Doyle is my favourite of his characters, but Knife Edge was only so-so, I thought). I haven't read Lucy's Child, but Stolen Angels was so disappointing. I agree that his later books from roughly Deadhead onwards have just not been as good as the earlier ones. The last one I read before he started the Hammers was Hell to Pay and again it didn't do anything for me.
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Post by andydecker on Mar 30, 2014 21:24:51 GMT
I agree this for me was really the last of the Hutson style books he is known for. The stuff he did later like White Ghost, Lucys Child and Stolen Angels are not just more subtle, but also lesser books. This, and more so Heathen the one before it are quite decent novels. The dip started after this . Yes, you are quite right. A lot of the novels after Deadhead didn't work for me. I quite liked Necessary Evil or Twisted Souls, but it seemed as if his heart wasn't into it anymore. They were better written, I like his lean writing style. But they often fell apart at the end.
The new announced novel at his new publisher Caffeine Nights also seems to be postponed. Not a good sign.
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Post by erebus on Mar 31, 2014 8:15:09 GMT
Yes its not arrived yet. MONOLITH its titled. Also the re-jacketed books of his earlier stuff hasn't surfaced either.
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